


Fade Away

by koogi123



Series: Fade Away [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Garrison AU, Gay Keith (Voltron), Hunk just wants some peace, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) Angst, Keith and Lance are soulmates, Keith gets better at feelings with Lance's Help, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Langst, M/M, Other, Pining Keith/Lance (Voltron), Sassy Keith (Voltron), Sassy Pidge | Katie Holt, Scared Lance (Voltron), Slightly Emotionally Constipated Shiro, Soulmate AU, klance, klangst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22994791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koogi123/pseuds/koogi123
Summary: “Watch where you’re going!” A voice hisses, and it sounds…Really pretty.Why does it sound so pretty?Something is telling him not to look up.Don’t do it, Lance.But he resists, gaze flickering over to who he knocked over.Something inside of him breaks.Whatever broke, releases the warmest of feelings yet… A certain uneasy emptiness.The boy who now scoffs and goes to turn away has a Mullet, definitely a Mullet, and almost a permanent scowl on his expression.But he’s pretty. Like seriously pretty.Why was he thinking this?or/A Soulmate AU; Where Soulmates are rare and unfortunately not wanted. Because if you do have a Soulmate, when you first meet them, you can no longer be away from them without fading away.For good.And what sucks?; Only one half of the pair fades.Lance thinks he hates his luck. But maybe not.. Because Keith is someone worth being stuck with for eternity.
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Fade Away [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652632
Comments: 18
Kudos: 186





	1. New Grounds

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy!! This is my first 'long' (well- Sorta long-) fanfiction and it will be updating frequently! (About once or twice a week), and I hope it's enjoyed! But this was very much written for Practice & Fun so there's no one else checking this over except for me. And it's definitely not going to be 100% accurate to the show, but (hopefully) close enough! (I'm trying my best to make it as accurate as possible-- but In the end I'll just be having fun writing it ^^)
> 
> This is a Soulmate AU in which there's a couple and one half will fade away if they aren't touching the other half for a long period of time. It only happens after first meeting, and it begins slowly as to give a chance for the soulmates to pair up and get to know each other. However because of how rare soulmates are in this world, most people don't know what's wrong with Lance.
> 
> Feel free to write your own Soulmate AU with this idea! (I'm unsure if I'm the first to come up with this, but I'd love to be credited!)  
> And honestly if you do write something, let me know!! I'd love to see!! No matter what fandom you write it for :o
> 
> Anyways, have fun reading! :)

Ever since Lance was little, he knew something was wrong. It was this.. ‘Off’ feeling inside. 

It was as if every time he saw someone new there was _relief._ But why was there relief? Was he dreading something to come? Did it have to do with people?  
  


Why did he feel better huddled up in his room, underneath his blankets.. Rather than out with others?  
  


The boy so badly wanted to talk at all times, he had over a million things to say yet.. He could only do it with people he knew. It was safer. If he wasn’t talking, then holding a hand up to his heart and counting the beats was what he did. As if making sure the heart inside was okay.  
  


One day Lance decided he longed for the stars above. They were harder to count than his heart beats, but they seemed so much prettier.

He wanted to reach them.

So despite his fears in which he didn’t know from where they came, he went for them.

It had to be a mistake.

“Lance?”

“Huh? What-- Oh!” Lance snaps out of the small ‘daze’ he was in, essentially staring down at his hands while sitting on his bed. The Garrison rooms were.. Small, sure. But new, and exciting! Right?

But Lance doesn’t feel excited.

_Why doesn’t he feel excited?  
_

Hunk snaps his fingers in front of Lance’s face and the boy jumps, eyes sheepishly looking to his Roommate.

“Dude, you’re _seriously_ out of it.” Hunk smiles, though worryingly. “You good?”

Lance nods, offering a reassuring Smile back. “Yeah man! Just nervous. But it’s a good nervous.” This earns a chuckle from the other, and relief instantly fills him.

Hunk was.. Different then most people Lance has met. He wasn’t scared or hesitant when he first went to meet him… Just, happy. Maybe it was because it was a new experience, or maybe it was because Hunk just gave off these warm vibes.

But every time he was around the other cadet, he felt better. Even though.. Well, they _just_ met not so long ago.

“That’s good. I mean, being nervous sucks! I’ve almost thrown up since I’ve got here, but being excited is good.” Hunk says, smile widening in his own relief when Lance snorts.

“I’m pretty sure you _have_ thrown up buddy.”  
  
“Nope. There’s no proof.”

“Other then you running to the bathroom in the middle of our first class?”

“If it’s not recorded, it’s not true.”

“Say that to the security cameras.”

Hunk pauses, then a pout forms on his face. “What if they’re not recording? What if they’re just watching?”

“Hunk, My Man, you’re smarter than this.”

They bicker until it’s time to sleep, and Lance gets into bed in a much better mood.

But when the lights go out, and Hunk starts snoring, there’s something not right.

It’s too quiet.

It had to be too quiet.

Lance was used to siblings refusing to sleep, loud and running about. He was used to the TV going off until Midnight as his older siblings watched whatever was on at the time. He was used to the ceiling fan making the loudest of noises, like a _squeaking_ noise that a dog’s toy made. Except.. Worse.

It was too quiet. That’s what was wrong.

Even with Hunk’s snoring it.. Felt empty. There wasn’t enough noise.

But he can’t wake Hunk up to ask if he has a fan, and he can’t search for one because.. He didn’t bring one and he couldn’t just search through Hunk’s things. That was just.. An Invasion of privacy. 

So he doesn’t get much sleep that night.

When he ‘wakes up’, he’s exhausted but.. He knows he still can’t sleep.

Hunk shows his concern, but Lance shrugs it off with a laugh. ‘He was just tossing and turning all night.’

‘He was nervous.’

Hunk still gets it.

Lance doesn’t know if he believes it. He hopes he does. He doesn’t want anyone to worry about him-- especially since he’s been dealing with it his whole life. His Sister even thought he had depression at one point, but that wasn’t the case.

He didn’t know how to explain to them, or anyone at all, that people scared him. But only when he doesn’t know them.

Because he can’t even explain it to himself.

On his way to class, he’s staring at the ground as he walks. Hunk’s nervous chatter is white noise to his ears, and sometimes he hears bits and pieces. Lance would just nod or agree with whatever he was saying, but he doesn’t attempt conversation.

They’re almost to class when Lance runs straight into someone. He sees a flash of orange and black before he’s on the ground along with whomever was the victim of his carelessness. 

“Watch where you’re going!” A voice hisses, and it sounds…

Really pretty.

_Why does it sound so pretty?_

Something is telling him not to look up.

_Don’t do it, Lance._

But he resists, gaze flickering over to who he knocked over.

Something inside of him breaks.

Whatever broke, releases the warmest of feelings yet… _A certain uneasy emptiness.  
_

The boy who now scoffs and goes to turn away has a Mullet, _definitely a Mullet,_ and almost a permanent scowl on his expression.

But he’s pretty. Like seriously pretty.

_Why was he thinking this?  
_

“Dude--”  
Before Hunk can get his word in about Lance _100%_ drooling over this guy, the boy darts forward and grabs Mullet’s shoulder, forcing him to turn and face him. He’s met with the most _irritated_ of looks, but there seems to be almost a _pause_ in there. _Was it.. Worry?  
_

Lance vaguely knows he has bags underneath his eyes, no makeup can hide those. But surely nothing else was wrong.

Except maybe the way he was staring at this guy he doesn’t even know.

“ _What?”  
_

Lance awkwardly fumbles, shaking his head. “Sorry, Sorry-- uh, Sorry I ran into you. Yeah.” He fidgets, looking away in order to not meet Mullet’s reaction.

There’s the longest of silence, neither making a move. Hunk approaches them, raising a finger and going to express his worries about being late.  
“Hey guys-”  
  
“It’s fine.”  
  


Lance looks up, only to be met with ‘Pretty-boy’ looking away.

“Okay.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  


…

Mullet finally moves, not sparing a look to Lance. But when looking closely, there’s almost a red on the other’s cheeks.

_Red suits him,_ Lance thinks.

“Dude, we really need to go.” Hunk stresses, resisting the urge to comment on _what just happened.  
_

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go, Sorry Hunk.”  
  
“No problem, Man. Let’s just go before we get kicked out on our third day.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Lance doesn’t see Mullet again for another Month, and for some reason it hurts. But there was.. Another thing. He thinks it’s good, but for some reason he also feels like it’s not.

Whenever he thinks about meeting someone new, it no longer feels like he’s going to dread it. He doesn’t feel relieved after meeting them, it’s just.. Empty. Like sure he met someone new, but it just brought a sense of normality instead of feeling better about something that isn’t even there.

But when he sees this boy after that Month, sitting down looking angry, his chest warms up and he’s drawn to him. But he knows not to just _walk over._ Especially since it looked like he was in trouble. Along with another boy one seat away from him.

_Did that other boy have a black eye?  
_

He stares for too long, and soon dark purple-eyes meet his own. A ‘staring contest’ of sorts starts, and both boys are red in the face as they realize they can’t pull away. Mullet is tugged away from the ‘contest’ when… _Was that Shiro?  
_

Lance blinks, a gasp erupting from his throat. This causes both Shiro and pretty-eyes to look over, but by the time they do Lance is gone.

And the boy is left dumb-founded.

Over the next couple of days, Lance avoids the mystery boy the best he can. But it’s hard. Because every time he thinks he’s taking the way that would be avoiding his ‘problem’, the problem would be there. Every time he was, he would just _stare._ And when he _did_ stare, Lance would fidget and fumble to try and get away from his prying eyes.

Until he gets trapped and pinned to a wall in an empty hallway.

_Oh God.  
_

As soon as he feels himself being shoved and pressed against a wall, he’s trying to find out what had just happened. All breath was knocked out of him, but not from the shove. From looking up and seeing those starry pretty eyes staring deep into his own with an intensity he can’t even describe.  
  


“I-”  
  


“Why are you following me?”  
  


_What?  
  
_

Lance gives an overly confused look, _following him?  
  
_

“Well?”

_He wasn’t following him. He was trying to avoid him._

But he didn’t want to say that.

He didn’t want to say anything, because for some reason having this boy against him brought warmth. It wasn’t.. A bad warmth or even a good one. But just.. _Warm.  
_

“I wasn’t-- I wasn’t following you?” Lance stutters out, eyes clouded with dread all of a sudden.

A certain fear crept up, and he didn’t know what to do.

_What happened to the warmth?  
_

Mullet inspects him, not saying a thing for a full minute before releasing his grip on Lance. 

“Sure you weren’t. I see you everywhere I go.” He huffs, scowling.

Lance honestly doesn’t know what to say.

Or.. He does know but-- he wants to say something different over the ‘preferred’ choice of words.

But those words were.. Embarrassing and he had no idea where they came from.  
  


“I um, Sorry?”  
  


…  
  


“Why are you apologizing? That-- Makes no sense.”

Yeah he’s right about that.

“Sorry uh-- I don’t really know what to say.”

The boy suddenly laughs, but as soon as he does a hand shoots up to his mouth to cover it.

_Why was the laugh so nice?  
  
_

“Uh-- Sorry-- I um,” Pretty has to stop himself from chuckling again, “Shiro has been telling me that _I’m_ the one who sucks at emotions but, I guess I’m not the only one?”

…..

Lance then bursts, “No! I just, I didn’t know what to say! And,-- Oh you’re joking I- Oh.”

Suddenly it’s way more awkward than it once was. Since both boys have no idea what to say and honestly it seemed like they couldn’t get anything out.

“I’ll just-- Go? Look I uh, Shiro always tells me I’m not the best at this? But I,” He visibly struggles, eyes gazing down to stare at his hands. “I.. I don’t know. Seeing you around here is.. Different? It’s weird and-- I don’t even know you.”

He then looks up, eyebrows furrowed and expression conflicted.

“But you look so sad?”

_Does he?  
_

“And, I don’t like that?”

“But I’m not sad!” Lance chokes out, “I’m just! Confused.. I.. I don’t think I can really, talk about it right now. Not with you.” There’s hurt that flashes over the boy’s face, that soon turns to anger and he turns away.

“Fine.”

_He’s walking away, please don’t walk away.  
_

“Wait!” The Blue-eyed boy grabs his shoulder before he can move away any further, and when turned around Mullet is _glaring_.

“ _What?_ ” He hisses, but when Lance flinches he settles down and firey eyes soften.

“You-- I just, I want to understand. You.. You get angry at me for not wanting to tell something to a stranger..? That’s.. A bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

_Annnd the anger is back.  
_

“Well I didn’t _have_ to talk to you at all, now did I?”

“Well you didn’t have to shove me against a wall!”

“I thought you were following me!”

“I wasn’t! I was avoiding you!”

“You were-- _What?_ ”

Lance goes silent, he hadn’t wanted those words out. 

“I--I have to, I have to go. I’m sorry. I can’t--” He rushes past him, disappearing and leaving Mullet with an angry yet just.. Yet again confused expression.

They both didn’t know how to feel.

_This might be a long year ahead._


	2. Shy Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance feels uncertain, but that's okay, because Keith does too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh goodness this is a mess  
> But we're rolling with it

Another Month passes before Lance realizes something is wrong.

Maybe he knew something was always wrong? But now something is-- _seriously_ wrong.

The pain from not seeing Mullet faded away, and for a while it left an empty void inside of the boy. But after a week, a burning aching sensation replaced the pain.

It lasted the whole day, and throughout his classes he had to excuse himself for ‘getting sick’. Lance would dry heave into the bathroom, but nothing would come out and the burning would be unbearable. 

In his last class he was forced to his room finally, there he lay in his bed with the most dullest of expressions and clogged mind.  
  


….  
  


He thinks.. He thinks he really needs someone.  
  


And he wants to deny it so badly but..  
  


He thinks he needs the stranger with the Mullet and pretty purple eyes.

_It’s such a weird realization._

_How could he think this way of someone who he hasn’t even met?_

_Is this what a crush feels like?_

Surely not..

But then again, Lance hasn’t had too many major crushes.. Maybe on quite a few girls and some boys but-- Nothing like this. Nothing with someone who he doesn’t know anything about.

He at least needs to get his name.

Lance can do that, right?

He decides he would try.

The boy rolls over in bed, tucking the blanket over his head and shutting his eyes. Despite the burning sensation flaring, he finds sleep.

The next day as he wakes up, the burning nuisance is gone and the only thing on his mind is pretty-eyes.

But of course, life tosses obstacles at him.

Hunk is the first obstacle, the boy fretting over Lance with dramatic worry in his eyes. 

“Bro, I’m alright! Trust me!” Lance huffs out, batting away Hunk’s hand as it reached to feel his forehead.

“But you were in and out of classes all day yesterday! You missed so much-- You’re lucky I take notes man.” A long pause, “But seriously-- ARE you okay? Do you need to see the nurse--”

“I promise I’m fine. I think it was just a bug.” Lance says calmly, gently smiling at his friend.

Hunk seems hesitant to let the subject go, but he sighs and nods. “If you say so. I’m glad you’re feeling better.” The boy stands, and hums as he grabs a few things around the room. “Now come on, you don’t want to get another ‘late penalty’.”

Lance sticks his tongue out at Hunk, but gives in as he runs to change into something decent. (In which was just his garrison uniform-- but y’know. Details, details.)

_He may or may not have asked Hunk how he looked several times over, this leaves him suspicious as to why Lance was caring about his looks so much. But honestly Lance couldn’t say a word. He didn't need to add anything to his current nerves swirling around like a tornado in his head._

After all, he doesn’t even know if doing what he’s going to do was worth it. Especially since.. This guy was a stranger for peats sake.

_An incredibly pretty stranger who was constantly on his mind and making him feel stupidly warm yet hurt when not seeing him.  
_

_Stupid emotions..  
Stupid chest.  
_

As soon as his class ends he’s off to lunch, leaving Hunk confused though not suspicious. The other boy usually went off to the library instead and sure, Lance did join him usually but.. It wasn’t rare for him to go to the cafeteria either. He liked talking with others! He did! But, with his whole ‘avoiding the Mullet’ thing he had for a while, just chilling with Hunk was preferred. 

But now he _wanted_ to find the boy. Despite the awkward exchanges they shared, he wanted to.

So, he speed-walks down the halls in search of ‘pretty.’ First checking the cafeteria and waiting for a few minutes, not eating or moving. But when it appears he wouldn’t show up, Lance exits and sneaks around the hallways as quietly as he could.  
  
Apparently he wasn't quiet enough, though he can't be blamed for that. He was naturally a loud person, and sneaking around was not his specialty. 

“Care to explain why you’re not at Lunch?” The voice comes out of nowhere, and earns a startled ‘squeak’ from Lance. The boy calms himself down enough in order to look towards whoever just called him out.  
  


….

“Well?”  
  
 _Oh god it’s Shiro.  
_

“Uh..” Blue eyes try not to dart around for an escape, and he has to will himself to not panic. “Sorry, I was just looking for someone.” _Cough. Real smooth.  
_

“Oh? Did they not show up at Lunch either?” Shiro has an eyebrow raised, but his arms aren’t crossed so Lance will take that as a good sign of ‘only getting half a lecture by the end of this talk’ _._

“No? Uh-- I mean, No. They weren’t.” Lance fidgets, “Weren’t at lunch, I mean. So I thought I’d um, look for them.” _You are the definition of smooth, Lance. Truly Fucking amazing._  
  


…

“You’re pretty far from the Cafeteria, are you _sure_ that’s what you were doing?” The Older man _then_ crosses his arms, and Lance has to resist groaning in regret. _Life is a pain._

“Yup!” He says, giving his _best although fake_ smile. 

Shiro doesn’t look convinced, eyes searching Lance and looking for something.

Eventually after a long awkward silence, the man sighs and gestures towards the direction of the cafeteria. “Go on then, maybe your friend is looking for you?”

Lance is hesitant to step forward, eyebrows narrowing as he himself was not convinced that he was being let off the chain so simply. But when Shiro goes to say anything else, Lance swiftly nods and rushes forward. “Yeah I’ll go see! Thanks Sh- I mean-- Mr. Shirogane!” _Freedom, at last._

Shiro tries to say ‘You don’t need to call me that,’ but Lance is _gone_ by the time he starts speaking. The man lets out a snort, shaking his head in amusement. 

_That had to be ‘stupid pretty blue-eyes.’_

_Keith really knew how to pick the path with most trouble. Hm.  
_

He lets out a sigh then, turning and walking in the direction of where the roof was.

_He had to tell a certain brooding Kogane that ‘blue’ was looking for him.  
_

_...._

“Uh… Hey?”

Lance lets out a surprised noise at the sudden voice, pouting on the inside because _that’s the second time he’s been caught off-guard._

He lifts his head from where it had laid on the table, and he’s met with pretty-purple eyes.

_Wait what?_

The boy didn’t think that Mullet would.. Come to the cafeteria? He usually didn’t. Not whenever Lance was there, anyway. He wouldn’t be at the library either-- in which was where Lance fled to whenever he wanted to avoid Mullet in the first place. 

He quickly realizes that he’s staring, and his mouth opens and closes like a fish’s would. Though a fish might have a better time talking than he did.

“....Hi.” _Lance quietly beats himself up on the inside for embarrassing himself.  
_

“Shiro said you wanted to see me..?” 

_What?  
Was he that obvious?  
_

“He.. He did?” Mullet nods in response, though it’s abrupt and quick. As if he was conflicted himself. “I didn’t uh, say that to him? But I-- Um. Yeah I was looking for you.” Lance admits, words toppling out fast. He was stupidly nervous, but he needed to be truthful if he was going to get _anywhere_ , right?  
  


“Oh.”  
  


…..

“We have some time left, if you want to.. Talk?” Mullet suggests after their yet again awkward silence.

“Sure uh.. Here? Or? The Library..?” Lance pauses, “Or just here, anything works I just-- What’s your name?” _If Lance ever claimed that he was a king at socializing, they just needed to put this boy in front of him and he would be proven wrong._

Purple-eyes blinks at the question, and Lance thinks he sees a smile struggle to hide itself. “I know where, and I-- I’m Keith.” _Keith_ says, and Lance feels relief swarm inside of himself.

“I’m Lance. You want to… Lead the way?” Lance mumbles, face turning almost red when Keith grins. _Weak Lance, Weak._

They end up on the roof of the garrison, sitting down and struggling to say a thing. Fidgety hands tap at the ground, filling the silent air with a 'tip-tap' echo.

“I didn’t think I’d get this far.” Lance finally says, making Keith look over with a bit of an oblivious look. 

“I didn’t either? But what do you mean?” 

“You didn’t either?” Lance raises an eyebrow, but then laughs afterwards. “I mean.. I personally have this thing on my mind? That I’ve had for.. A really long time, and I don’t think you would understand it because I don’t even understand it myself, but,” He fidgets with uncertainty, not knowing if he should simply spill his guts like this. “Its.. Been on my mind a lot more recently, and I don’t want you to feel weirded out by me but I do think it’s because of you? Like I had a weird feeling inside of my chest..? It used to hurt sometimes, and it burned? I couldn’t sleep.” _It felt like he was saying too much too quickly._

Lance feels like he’s making a mistake, but Keith’s expression never changes. It was only thoughtful, but most definitely confused.

“Sorry I-- We don’t even..” He fumbles, “We don’t know each other that well but I don’t know what else to do. I just.. I think there’s something wrong with me.”

Keith shakes his head, “There’s nothing wrong with you? Unless you’re sick but, sorry I don’t really know what to.. Say.” He sighs, and it seems like he’s mad at himself for something. Lance feels as if he’s responsible for the anger crossing Keith’s face and goes to stand.

“M’ Sorry- I’ll just go- I didn’t mean--”

“No!” Keith pulls Lance back down, making the blue-eyed boy yelp. “I’m Sorry I’m not the best at this.. And I guess I just get angry because of it? I just wish I could understand.” He pauses, staring down at his hands as Lance mumbles something he can’t quite hear. “But I want to try and, I guess I feel.. Something about you too but I just don’t know what.”

So they were both confused.

_Emotionally constipated messes, honestly. If that's those are the words you were looking for.  
_

But they’ll figure it out.

“Okay.” Lance says, and Keith gives a strained smile. 

“Okay.” He says back, and Lance returns the smile.

“So uh.. Since we don’t know much about each other and.. I want to know more about you---” Lance flushes, “Sorry that came out weird, but. Do you want to-- hang out? Sometime? Or.. Whenever we can? I go to the library with my friend Hunk a bunch-- and, there’s always Lunchtime. If you wanna come with, for either of those.”

“I..” Lance sees the hesitance, and he wants to curl in on himself for being foolish. “I want to. But I just. I don’t know how.”  
  
Lance blinks dumb-foundedly, “You don’t know how to what?”

“Be a friend.” He sighs shakily, “Or.. Hang out or,”

“I can show you,” Lance interrupts, making Keith fumble. “I-- I can be your friend.” 

“I think, I think I’d like that.”

“Good because I.. I don’t know what I’d do if you said no.” Lance laughs, though there’s this _sad_ presence behind it all.

Keith picks up on it, but doesn’t say anything. He didn’t want to pressure Lance, despite feeling the need to be blunt and ask. But he knows that he wouldn’t like it if Lance tried to pry into his life so early on too. He learned his lesson from just the months of being with Shiro, learning from so much from the man already.

When the bell rings, Keith is standing and offering a hand to Lance. The Boy smiles sheepishly and accepts the help to stand, following Mullet back inside.  
  


_This won’t be so bad._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sweats


	3. Sharp Turns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And even closer.

Okay, rephrase that. It will not be  _ too  _ bad.

Because to put it bluntly, they struggled. 

The two got into arguments over the smallest of things, and a month in- the whole school claimed them to just straight up hate each other.

But for them, that wasn’t the case. It may have been…  _ Partly  _ the case at first. However, after getting through the first few hiccups of misunderstandings, the arguments just turned into dares and rivalry. 

For a while, it was nice. Lance never had so much fun  _ making fun of someone.  _

Sometimes they say things they shouldn’t have said, in a failed attempt to pick at one another. This led to the ‘I’m avoiding you’ situations.

Those situations were the worst, according to Hunk.

Lance’s proclaimed ‘best friend’ would watch as him and Keith didn’t talk for a  _ week.  _ It was like a shift in the balance, from dramatic to quiet. 

Hunk didn’t really like it all that much. Even  _ if  _ he barely got involved in Keith and Lance’s ‘debates’ and conversations. He still hung out with them quite a bit, seeing the two form a bond that Hunk didn’t even think was possible for the usual  _ brooding  _ Teen.

So when they didn’t see each other for that week, Hunk watched that bond flicker dull and Lance get the worst of it.

He wonders how the Blue-eyed boy could so easily feel this way despite only knowing Keith for a Month.

Or well, he knew him longer but-- they didn’t talk for a good two months there.

Either way, Lance was upset, and  _ god  _ Hunk compared him to a kicked-puppy many, many times that week. He tried his best to cheer him up, but all he would get is a  _ heart-breaking  _ sad smile. He doesn’t even know what Lance said-- That or whatever Keith may have said?

“Lance, buddy, please talk to him.” Hunk finally says on Saturday, voice holding a soft tone but Lance knows it’s serious.

He however doesn’t respond, only bringing the blanket over his head  _ further  _ from where he lay in bed.

“Alright, that’s it.” Lance isn’t prepared for the blanket being  _ forcefully  _ yanked off of him, cold air hitting his bare arms and legs. He shivers and lets out a dramatic whine, dragging his pillow over his head.

“ _ Lance if you don’t---”  _ “OKAY OKAY” The boy huffs, throwing his pillow over at Hunk and nailing him in the head. 

“LANCE”   
  
“HUNK”

There’s a pause before they’re both laughing, and Hunk freezes upon finally hearing Lance  _ Laugh.  _ Relief swept over the room, settling and making the situation not as tense.  _ He must be in a better mood,  _ Hunk Thinks. It’s a happy thought, and a good one too. Especially when looking over to Lance’s dumb grin. 

“As  _ much  _ as I’m happy to see you not sulking--” Lance pouts at that, “Seriously dude. Go talk with him, I hate seeing you down. It’s like watching an upset puppy call for his Mom but not get an answer back.”

There’s a snort that comes from Lance, shaking his head as he sits up. “Fine.” 

When seeing Hunk light up, Lance felt.. A _ Little  _ bad for making his friend go through a silent week like that. He didn’t deserve that bad energy all because  _ he  _ slipped up in a conversation with someone else.

The blue-eyed boy stretches, arms hitting the back of the wall near the bed. A big yawn stretches across his face and he stands, going to get ready before confronting Keith. It’ll give him time to think about what to say, maybe start off with a .. ‘Sorry’.

When brushing his Teeth, Hunk lets him know that he’s going to run some sort of Errand (AKA go to the cafeteria in order to cook up a storm, despite not being allowed to.) He leaves with a ‘Good luck’ and a pat on Lance’s back.

Lance rolls his eyes fondly, his friend was too good to him.

He strolls out of the bathroom not too long after making sure his face was break-out free, and double checking that he looked  _ decent  _ enough. On his way towards Keith’s room however, there’s an ache in his chest that forms out of nothing. He doesn't question it at first, but when it worsens he grows concerned.

Lance has to stop walking in order to grip the side of the wall, but something..  _ Odd  _ happens when he tries. It was as if his fingers phased through, it felt.. Tingly and just  _ weird.  _ He has to look twice at the wall, blurry vision restricting him from telling if what he was feeling was true. But when adjusting, his fingers lay against the wall and not through it.

_ Is he going crazy? _

The pain grows worse, and he has to slide down to the ground to just  _ sit  _ for a moment with his head in his hands. 

_ He’s okay. He’s okay. He has to be fine. _

There’s the sound of a door opening down the hallway, and Lance mentally curses when realizing he was just a little aways from Keith’s room. He could’ve made it by now, but shouldn’t he be glad he didn’t? Keith didn’t have to see him like this. Yet, Lance didn’t count his blessings in that moment as said boy crouches in front of him.  
  


“Lance..?”  
  


The only noise that Lance manages to make is a broken whimper. It comes from not just the pain, but the emotions from seeing Keith after a week of not speaking to one another.  
  


_ It Hurt.  
  
_

“I--  _ Shit. _ ” Keith curses, “Are you okay? No wait-- Fuck that’s a stupid question.”

_ Keith curses when he’s conflicted or angry. Or just.. Emotional in general. _

“Think you can walk?” He says instead of asking ‘Are you Okay’ for a second time. Lance forces himself to look up at Keith, and all he gets is an overly worried glance directed his way. The ache in his chest lessens, but it stays as he forces himself to his feet.

“Okay-- Okay, take your time.” Keith frets, hand hesitantly taking its place onto Lance’s back. “Can you tell me what’s up..?” Pretty-eyes tries as he guides Blue-eyes towards his room. 

“Ermph,” Lance huffs, pain and embarrassment making it hard to get the words he wants to say out. “Chest Hurts. Dunno why.”

Lance lets out a confused hum when they suddenly stop before entering, glancing over to see Keith’s now conflicted face. “Wh-”

“Do you need the nurse then?” Keith interrupts Lance before he could express his confusion, and the boy blinks dumb-foundedly. 

_ Does he need the nurse?  _ Lance thinks to himself,  _ no, surely not. This has happened before, just, not this.. Bad. _

He gives a shake of his head, “No, it’s okay. I just need to lay down.”

“Are you sure..?” Lance’s heart flutters gently at the tone of Keith’s voice, it’s just laced with deep concern. 

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Keith opens the door and they walk in together, Lance letting himself be dragged by the hand. Normally he’d be..  _ Very much  _ red in the face right now because of this, but the ache prevented him from being such as so. Keith however, wasn’t spared the same treatment. Despite being worried and filled to the brim with concern, he was a victim to a blush splotch spreading across his face.

Lance is directed towards Keith’s bed, in which he sits on with an ‘oomf’. Purple-Pretty-Eyes  _ (Yeah Lance is never going to stop calling him different things--)  _ sorta gives Blue-eyes  _ (Did they even know they basically have the same nickname for each other?) _ a gesture to lay down. 

Lance tilts his head, confused but realizing after a moment what he was being told-- or uh..  _ Motioned  _ to do. He had been to one who said he needed to lay down, yet the only thing on his mind wasn’t the ache. It was just.. Apologizing to Keith. He still needed to.

So of course, instead of laying down  _ (and making Keith pout, don’t you dare think Lance didn’t see that-),  _ he opens his mouth to speak, “I’m sorry.”

Keith pauses from where he was taking a seat in a nearby chair, eyes  _ slowly _ squinting as he  _ does  _ sit down. “Why are you sorry about not feeling okay?”

_ Did he just-  _ “No! That’s not--” Lance feels the pain in his chest suddenly flare, and he’s cut off with a shaky sigh. “That’s not why I’m apologizing.”   
  
“Then why?”

_ Wow he really was just--  _ “Because I made you upset..? We haven’t talked in a week- and I just, our last conversation didn’t end too well..” Lance mumbles sheepishly, eyes averting from Keith in order to look down at the ground. 

It goes quiet as Keith processes this, and suddenly he lets out a grumble. But it wasn’t directed at Lance in any way, just.. At himself.

“Then I’m Sorry too.” He says finally, “I didn’t mean to.. Make it seem like I wasn’t talking to you? I’m sorry I snapped at you too-- but I thought we were still.. ‘Okay’? I guess? I just got caught up in school work all this week. So I wasn’t able to.. Contact you.” 

Lance’s chest eases at Keith’s words and he lets out a soft laugh. Keith raises an eyebrow at that, eyes catching Lance’s. Mullet’s breath hitches when seeing an overly gentle grin shining his way and he has to look at the wall to avoid the blush from returning. 

“Okay.. Good to know. That makes me feel a lot better.” Lance says, leaning against the wall instead of actually laying down as he had planned to do. “I’m still sorry for my comment though.. It was too far.”  _ He Thinks. _

“You don’t even know what you’re really apologizing for, it’s fine.” Keith states, head shaking. “I just need to stop being a hothead about it.”

“Hey, wait, no.” Lance says back, his own eyes now forming the concern that Keith had carried before. “If it’s a sensitive topic then.. I get why you’d feel that way over it. Your feelings matter too, Keith.”

Keith reluctantly nods, seemingly getting lost in thought as he stares at the ground. 

“Well if we’re done with.. This topic..” Lance says after a moment of silence, “We’re.. Good?” 

“Yeah. We’re good.” Keith says, but only after a minute of sifting through his thoughts. “Now, don’t think I’ve forgotten about you hurting just now.” He says when looking up, eyebrow raised towards Lance. The boy in question immediately curls in on himself, frowning in knowing that he wouldn't have been able to avoid this. 

“I.. Uh.” Lance looks away this time, eyes downcast at his hands. “It’s nothing.” He says as if it’s something he’s said several times before, along with a shrug of his shoulders. 

There’s a long sigh that comes from Keith, and Lance thinks it gets  _ too  _ quiet after. 

“Please talk to me Lance.” He finally says, “This past Month has been.. Really… Different for me. And it was… Nice? It was.. Good.” There’s strong emotions laced with pure confusion yet determination in his words. “I got to know you. I.. Made a friend. You, the friend.”  _ Phew that’s a mangle of words.  _ “And-- Even Hunk too. You both-- It’s been nice to have someone else other than just.. Shiro. Even if sometimes we don’t agree on… Some stuff. You never make me feel bad.” 

Lance now stares over at Keith, eyes softening and an urge to get closer to Mullet pulls in his chest. 

“But I still feel like you’re not being.. Open.” He almost nods to himself, as if he found the right words for what he needed. “You don’t have to be open with everything, but.. I still feel as if I barely know you and.. You know me.” Keith finishes, meeting Lance’s eyes again. But this time neither of them looked away.

“You think I should.. Be more open..?” Lance states, eyebrows furrowing. When Purple-eyes nods Lance brings his hand to his chest and gently grips at it. “Okay. I-- I don’t know if I want to.. Say too much. Right away..”   
  
“You don’t have to.” Keith interrupts, “I just-- I guess I want to be able to read you better.”

“You and me Both.” Lance laughs softly, “I mean.. It’s hard to tell what you’re thinking too, y’know? I uh.. Didn’t mean I didn’t know how to read myself.”  _ Possibly a lie. But Y'know. _

Keith flushes at the statement, but a snort escapes him and he shakes his head. “I’m trying. I haven’t exactly.. Ever been good with  _ this.  _ Friends and.. Family.”

“I appreciate the effort you’re making.” Lance smiles genuinely, “I’m Sorry if I’m not helping. I’ll try to.. Be less difficult.” 

“Thank you.” Keith smiles back, but when he stands and makes his way over to sit by Lance on the bed, Blue-eyes tilts his head and frowns. Especially when Mullet gets  _ very much up in his personal space.  _ “Are you going to tell me what’s going on here,” He taps a finger on Lance’s chest, “And here?” Then to the boy’s forehead. Lance has to control his breath from going shaky, red taking up the skin on his face. 

_ He shouldn’t be this close. _

_ It’s too warm. _

“U-uh um.” Lance  _ squeaks,  _ then shakes his head rapidly. “Right! Uhm! Nothing! Something?” He fumbles, and Keith raises an eyebrow. But the fucker has  _ amusement  _ in his eyes from his floundering.  _ Oh so the sensitive subject passes and he goes back to being an ass? _

He wasn’t like this before, but after hanging around Lance for a good  _ month  _ the boy can see his mistakes right in front of him.  _ Keith picked up on the playfulness way too quickly.  _ When Lance would poke and prod with words, Keith started poking and prodding back. Testing boundaries and finding  _ satisfaction  _ when Lance would end up tripping on his own words and unable to find a comeback. 

_ It wasn’t fair.  _

But now Keith is finding amusement in his pain??  _ Mullethead.  _

“Well? ‘Uhm’ isn’t exactly helping me out.” Fucking  _ Pretty Boy  _ Snickers. Lance scoffs lightly and pushes on Keith’s chest in order to get his breathing space back. “Hey,” Keith pouts, and Lance sticks his tongue out at him. “Well now you’re just being a child.”

Lance huffs, “And you’re being a rude!”

“A rude?” Keith smirks.

“Yes! A Rude, Stinky, Stupid,  _ Pretty _ , Mullet.”

…..

_ Fuck wait a minute. _

“Did you just-”   
“NO!” Lance squawks, hiding his head in his hands. 

“You just called me, the following; A Rude, Stinky, Stupid,  _ Pretty,  _ Mullet.” Keith repeats, and Lance can’t see it but he knows there  _ has  _ to be a shit-eating grin there.  _ Right?  _

There isn’t. But Lance still doesn’t know that. Keith carries an unsure look, he never..

_ He never experienced anything that came with Lance.  _ Especially being called.. ‘Pretty’.

When Lance peaks from his hands in confusion on why it had gotten so quiet, he’s met with Keith’s own confused expression.  _ Did he make a mistake? _

Keith is quick to catch that sad look however, and the boy fumbles to figure out what the cause of it was. It didn’t take him long, since the evidence was right there.  _ Lance thinks he’s upset about the statement.  _ He suddenly smirks, thinking that this can be the best option he can give to offer comfort. “You called me  _ Pretty. _ ”

Lance groans in embarrassment, and Keith calls it a win. “You’re not gonna let it go, are you?” Baby Blue-eyes sighs, pressing his cheek against his hand. 

“Depends. Will you tell me about your chest?” Mullet questions, trying to catch Lance’s eyes when they look away for about the fourth time that day.

Lance bites at his lip, frown deepening.  _ Manipulative fuck.  _ But he relented, “Sometimes my chest just.. Hurts.” He starts, voice carrying a now serious-tone that tells Keith to give his full attention. They further away from the playful vibes, but knowing that they’ll return as soon as they went. “Even when I was a kid, it just, it just hurt. It’s random-- and I can’t control when it happens. So I just. Deal with it.” He sighs, shrugging once more. “And trust me-- we tried going to the doctors-- even the hospital. But nothing helped. Pain medication, meditation, I try it all but the only thing that really helps is laying down.”

Keith absorbs the information, confusion evident in his expression again. “You can’t…” He trails off, not finishing what he was about to say but instead saying, “When we first talked-- on the roof during Lunch.. You said.. You said you had a feeling in your chest. And that it hurt. But you said that, it might be because of me?” When Lance looks up with widened eyes, Keith thinks he already knows what the answer is. “I thought it was just because you felt something towards me-- not that your chest was  _ actually _ hurting. But you said it’s been there since you were a kid-- How could--”

“I don’t know!” Lance says, and Keith is surprised by the frustration that laces the interruption. “When I’m around you it’s better! It’s weird and I started to think that it might be coincidental. But every time you get close to me-- My chest feels warm and I feel better. But sometimes when I’m around you my chest still hurts. But most of the time it doesn’t? When we didn’t talk for the week my chest burned and when I first saw you then didn’t see you for a whole month it felt like it was on fire!” He rambles, “You-- I don’t think you’re causing it to hurt. Definitely not-- that’d be stupid. But isn’t it also stupid to think that you help it? I should just be going back to the hospital like Mama tells me to do but I don’t!” 

Lance visibly is starting to get pent up, hand clenching at his chest. Keith has no idea what to do, guilt weighing on his chest for playing around with Lance earlier. “Lance…”

The Blue boy shakes his head rapidly, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean-- You don’t… I sound stupid..”

“It’s not stupid.” Keith says sternly, gently grabbing at Lance’s balled up hand on his chest and bringing it away. As much as he didn’t have the best experience with physical comfort yet, there’s a place in his mind where he remembers Shiro taking his hands and placing against his own chest. Feeling another's heartbeat was comforting. So that’s what Keith does, taking Lance’s hand and placing it against his own chest.

Lance’s breath stops and he stares at the hand taken from him. Warmth fills his heart and Lance doesn’t know if he deserves it or not.

“I’m gonna help you figure it out.” Keith states firmly, getting Lance’s eyes to look up.

“You believe me..?” Lance lets out the breath he was holding when Keith nods. “But why?”

“Lance, if it helps. I believe in Cryptids.” Keith smirks, and Lance  _ almost  _ pulls his hand away from the other right there and then with a groan. But all he gives is a huff and a roll of his eyes, making Keith chuckle. 

“You can’t be serious.”

“Yes I can be.” Keith says smugly, but as soon as it came it went and the serious tone came back. “But seriously. It doesn’t sound stupid. It doesn’t sound crazy. If your chest hurts then.. It hurts. You can’t fake it.” He says in a reassuring way, “If I help then.. Maybe there’s a reason for that too. But I want to help you. You don’t deserve to be in pain for the rest of your life.”

“Neither do you..” Lance’s voice is quiet, and Keith just barely catches what’s said. His own heart warms and he squeezes the hand on his chest. 

“How are you feeling right now..?” Keith asks, tilting his head over to scan over Blue-eyes’ face. 

“Better.” He smiles tiredly, “Thank you Keith..”

Keith doesn’t miss the yawn that follows after, and he hums. “Wanna nap?” He questions bluntly. 

Lance shoots a questioning look at Keith, eyebrow raised, “Here?”

“Where else?”

Lance flushes, but Keith doesn’t take back his words. “...Sure.” They both however take their time, hesitating to move. The warmth coming from their hands was making them fidget, but it was something they didn’t want to lose too quickly. 

Keith is the first to pull away, but not without giving Lance’s hand a squeeze before letting go. He stands from the bed, striding over to the desk in the room and sitting down. The Blue boy watches him go, staring until his eyes start to get droopy. He lays down on Keith’s bed, pressing his face into the pillow with a sigh.

“Night Keith…”

Keith Turns, “It’s not-” …

Lance was already asleep.

Mullet rolls his eyes with a stupid fond grin,  _ he doesn’t know how he got here.. But he thinks he wants to stay here.  _

_ … _

_ Is growing attached bad..? _

_ No… _

_ Shiro is proud of him. _

_ He hasn’t lost Shiro. _

_ He won’t Lose Lance. _

He will  _ not  _ lose Lance.


	4. Chill Relief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light-Hearted Disasters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those who are reading through my messy scrambles of writing!

When ‘Sleeping Beauty’ next awakes, Keith is asleep on his desk, letting out light soft snores. Lance rubs at his eyes, yawning widely as he sits up. His gaze catches on Mullet, blurry eyes trying to figure out why he was laying on his desk. When his vision clears, he blinks in realization. “Keith…?”  _ No response. _

_ The fucker fell asleep on his desk. _

_ What was he even doing? _

He stands, an embarrassed noise escaping from him when realizing he was in Keith’s bed  _ with  _ his shoes on.  _ Idiot.  _

But he decides not to dwell on it, stalking over towards where Keith was snoozing. 

He doesn’t  _ mean  _ to snoop…

But seeing Keith’s shut eyes, his own gaze wanders towards the open laptop in front of him.

…

On the screen, he can distinctively read ‘ _ Tips on how to prevent chest pains. _ ’ 

His heart swells, “Keith…” He whispers in embarrassment, face flushed.

Lance has to take a moment to get himself together,  _ because that just did some serious damage to his heart,  _ before raising a hand and placing it onto Keith’s back. “Keith.” He says, gently patting with his hand. There’s a slight grumble that comes from the boy as his eyes flicker open, and when raising his head Lance has to resist laughing at the red mark left behind from the desk. 

“Hmmm…?” Keith  _ hums  _ as he gets his bearings, looking up at Lance. He processes what was happening rather quickly, and there’s a ‘slam!’ as he shuts his laptop tight.  _ Lance has to resist laughing at that too.  _

“Did you need to nap too..?” The Blue-eyed boy snickers, earning a glare from the Purple-eyed boy.

“Shut up.” He pouts, “Did you need something?” Keith asks then, yawning as he runs a hand through his  _ Mullet.  _

“No. Just thought I’d wake you before I head back. Since it’s uh…” His eyes travel around for a clock, “...Oh.”  _ 7 Pm.  _ “I didn’t realize I slept that long..”

Keith looks where Lance looks and his eyes comically widen, “My sleep schedule is screwed.”

“Yup.” Lance pops the P and casually strolls towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” He questions before opening it.

“Uh, Yeah.” Keith mumbles in an exhausted tone, “See you Tomorrow.”

Lance shoots a soft smile to the boy with a messy Mullet, and feels his own amusement build up when catching the blush before it spreads on Keith’s cheeks. 

_ Wait what? _

He quickly exits the room, shutting the door with a light slam.

_ He’s really gone for this boy, isn’t he? _

_ Curse the Mullet for being pretty and stupidly kind when he doesn’t realize he is even being kind. _

“Lance!” Hunk catches the boy in the hallway when on his way back to the room, making said boy jump in surprise at his friend who just turned abruptly around the corner.    
  
“God, you scared me.” Lance huffs, but this doesn’t get rid of the stupid smile on his face. Hunk is quick to take notice, eyebrow raising as his own happy grin finds its place on his expression. “So, what did you make?” 

“What did I-- Oh!” Hunk snorts, but then the most  _ satisfied  _ grin crosses his face and makes Lance skeptical.  _ Has he been in the kitchen this whole time?  _ “I have extras from what I made in the room if you want to see.”

“So I get to be a taste tester?” Lance grins, making Hunk laugh and give a pat on the lanky boy’s back. 

“If any of them are burnt, feel free to call me out on it. I need the criticism.” Hunk hums, opening the door to their room for Lance as soon as they arrive.

“Hunk, bud, you can make  _ anything  _ taste great. So I may not be the best in criticizing, but I will definitely make the best food-moans just for you.”

“Lance, bud, never use the term ‘food-moans’ in my presence ever again.”

“As long as you keep baking, I shall never say it again.”

“We have a deal.”

As more weeks passed by, Lance and Keith grew closer. They’d sit on the roof of the Garrison and talk about the most stupid of topics. 

_ ‘If you could eat a star I bet it’d taste spicy.’ _

_ ‘No, it’d taste like fire.’ _

_ ‘Do you know what fire even tastes like?’ _

_ ‘I wish I did.’ _

_ ‘If Fire had taste I bet Hunk would use it as an ingredient.’ _

_ ‘I’d pay to see that.’ _

_ ‘With what Money?’ _

_ ‘I have money.’ _

_ ‘Oh yeah?’ _

_ ‘Believe it or not I have a job’ _

_ ‘With Shiro?’ _

_ ‘Everything I do doesn’t always  _ **_have_ ** _ to be with Shiro, you know.’ _

_ ‘I mean-’ _

_ ‘Lance,’ _

_ ‘Right, moving on.’ _

_ ‘...But yes it is with Shiro.’ _

_ ‘I knew it!’ _

_ ‘Lance.’ _

_ ‘Mothman isn’t real-’ _

_ ‘LANCE-’ _

“Do you think there’s another version of us in another universe?” 

“Lance it’s almost the end of this semester, do you  _ really  _ want to be asking those kinds of questions right now?”

From where Lance lays in Keith’s bed he laughs, shaking his head. “I guess you’re right.” He hums, sitting up and glancing over to meet Purple eyes looking his way. “But we’re also always worrying over a test or  _ test  _ flight simulation, so there’s never a right time to ask  _ any  _ question.”

“This is why you do things last minute then?” Keith ponders aloud, making Lance give him an offended look.

“I don’t  _ always  _ do things at the last minute, thank you very much.” He pauses, “and no, it’s not the reason.”

“Well I didn’t say  _ always  _ first of all, and second of all no I don’t think there’s another version of us in another universe.” Keith smiles, placing his notebook off to the side in order to watch Lance wind himself up for a statement against his own. 

His blue eyes fog in confusion first, then a slight bit of understanding shines through that fog… And then more confusion, then some thinking. Then the pout…

Then..

_ 3.. 2.. 1- _

“Well I think there has to be, right?” Lance mumbles out, and Keith has to stop himself from laughing. He’s predicted Lance’s ramblings for the past week now, but he still surprises himself every time. It’s amusing, but also almost embarrassing.  _ If someone knew that he watched Lance as much as he did to get to this point he’d be dead. _

“And what makes you think that?” Keith questions back, standing up from his chair in order to sit by Lance.

“Because it can’t only be us in the universe, I mean- it’s huge. It’d be stupid to think that we were the only ones here.” Lance pokes Keith’s side and smiles stupidly. “And because it’s so big, it’d also stupid to not believe that there’s like.. Another world with us in it. And maybe instead of pilots we’re bakers or something.”

Keith snorts, “That’s interesting to think about, considering you suck at cooking and I can only make ramen noodles. But you have a point. I do think there’s other worlds out there-- and the universe is big. I told you I believed in cryptids so why not aliens too? And technically we’re also aliens to other aliens so.” He looks over to Lance, the boy listening and going through his own thoughts. Keith’s eyes land on Lance’s tongue, which stuck out off to the side. Just sitting there because Lance most definitely does not ever realize it does this. But Keith certainly does. 

He brings up a finger, and without thinking he pokes it. Lance in response lets out a dumb-founded yelp, face now going through stages of what looks like flushed-grief and embarassment. “Wh-”

_ Whoops.  _ Keith thinks, but just lets himself laugh at his own antic. “I do think that there’s more versions of us out there, but I don’t think they’re all the same.” He doesn’t let Lance speak quite yet, but the blue boy seems okay with this. Or maybe he’s just trying to calm himself from the attack on his own  _ tongue  _ he didn’t even know had been sticking out.

“Like you said, maybe there’s a world where we’re bakers. And that’s different. But I also don’t think we’re the same exact person, so it’s more like.. Copies of us, but not completely.”

“Y-Yeah,” Lance  _ squeaks,  _ trying his hardest not to think about how Keith didn’t even wipe his finger on anything after  _ T o u c h i n g  _ his tongue.  _ Maybe Keith really was a cryptid- who would even--  _ “Um”  _ Back on topic.  _ “So there might be a version of  _ me  _ that’s emo and a version of you that’s not so emo.”

“Hm” Keith stands from the bed, and Lance momentarily panics in thinking he said something wrong. But then Keith opens the closet in the room, revealing  _ several  _ black jackets and  _ several  _ combat boots. He turns to Lance with a mischievous smile, “I don’t think that universe exists.”

Lance snorts and erupts into loud laughter, making Keith’s chest swell with pride for himself.

“I-I think I need to,”  _ Snort  _ “agree with you on that.”

Keith laughs along now, with a fond roll of his eyes.

“Dork.” Lance comments as soon as he’s done wheezing.

“Don’t talk about yourself like that.” Keith shoots back, sitting back onto his chair and letting it twirl around for a moment. “Now not to be a party pooper, but we need to study before we end up sitting in the library at midnight again.”

“Callout post,” Lance murmurs, making Keith scoff.

“Just get over here, Twitter junkie.”

“Okay, social-media-deprived freak.”


	5. Fumbling Debris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Would you give up everything to keep someone happy?

Lance’s chest hadn’t hurt in months now, and he firmly believes that he’s off the hook. No more pain, no more flames burning wildly inside of him.

Keith for the most part didn’t question it, he had made efforts for a while to make sure Lance was okay and find a solution for the pain but.. There wasn’t much to do if the pain was gone and Lance was fine.  _ Even though it was strange to Keith that pain could just vanish after years and years of having it. He’d just have to.. Keep an eye on Lance. Not be doting or anything like that, _

But now on their second year of the Garrison, Lance finds it harder and harder to keep up with Keith. No matter how hard he tries, no matter how hard he works. It seems as if he was one step behind.

Even when Keith made various efforts to assist the blue-eyed boy, he just.. Was struggling. 

_ That’s  _ when the chest pains came back. When he stopped seeing Keith so often, when he got busier and more stressed.

He felt trapped.

He doesn’t know where he went wrong or what he was doing wrong.

But he doesn’t want to let anyone down, especially his family who helped him get here. So he keeps going. The boy overworking himself and trying to make a good impression. 

Halfway into the second semester, he’s thoroughly exhausted. But he was finally at a good place for himself.

All he wanted to do was collapse in bed and stay there for a few days, but it seems that ignoring the pains in his chest was finally getting to him. It really wasn’t bad! Not for a while. He was just.. Distracted. The work was more important than some dumb feeling in his chest that he couldn’t do anything about.

Well he.. Okay that’s wrong to think. He could do something. 

See Keith…

Oh god he hasn’t seen Keith since last semester and even then he barely spoke with him.

_ He’s going to be angry.  _ Lance thinks, immediately deflating from where he was walking in the hallway.

_ Don’t throw yourself a pity party now,  _ he sighs.  _ Keith must’ve been just as busy.  _ Or maybe not. Keith  _ did  _ seem to just..  _ Get  _ things so much easier than he did. But either way, Lance had been busy. It wasn’t his fault.

_ That doesn’t mean you couldn’t have hung out with him. You had the weekends. _

Yes but he was studying and sleeping during the weekends, again. Not his fault.

_ You could’ve texted him. _

Keith barely uses his phone-

_ That’s your excuse? _

…

The thoughts, although fruitless, distracted him. But it doesn’t last long, because soon there’s a flare in his chest and he’s letting out a gasp.

_ He needs to see Keith.  _

The boy stumbles to his room, fumbling to get the key from his pocket with shaky hands. The chest ache and stress from overworking himself finally catching up with him. It threatens to knock him over right there and then, but Lance persists.

_ Text Keith Text Keith. _

He opens the door, shoving himself through and tossing his bag off to the side.  _ Hunk still wasn’t back from his make-up test,  _ Lance slightly shivers.  _ Poor Hunk had been out sick all last week, missing two tests and having to borrow notes from Lance.  _

Lance shimmies over to his desk, sitting down in the chair and fishing his phone out from his pocket. He scrolls over to contacts, gently tapping the text icon.

_ Mama… Veronica.. Hunk.. _

_ Keith. There he is. _

Their last conversation consisted of note exchanging, but before that it was Keith poking fun at Lance for liking power rangers. A show that Keith  _ actually  _ knew, surprisingly. So of course, Lance made fun of Keith for that and--

_ Yeah. So on. _

His eyes skim over the notifications,  _ 4 missed texts from Keith. _

K; ‘ _ Do you need me to bring you coffee? You looked exhausted today. _ ’ -  2 weeks ago

K; ‘ _ Where r u? You weren’t at the library. _ ’ -  Last Friday

K; ‘ _ Are you ignoring me? _ ’ -  Last Saturday

_ K; ‘Alright. _ ’ -  Friday

Lance felt guilty,  _ Keith made the effort but I didn’t. _

He was a shit friend, wasn’t he?

_ Does he even deserve to see Keith? _

The pain flares and Lance winces,  _ that would just be using him to stop the pain, that’s not fair to Keith. He deserves someone better who won’t do this. _

His fingers shake, and he knows he’s just digging himself a hole that will be harder to climb out of the deeper it gets. But he doesn’t deserve Keith so why would he--

_ Oh god is Keith typing? _

Lance panics, freezing in place and unable to look away.

K _ ; ‘I saw you in the hallway today, we really need to talk. _ ’ -  5 seconds ago

_ He wants to.. _

_ He can do that he.. He owes Keith this. _

With jittery fingers he begins typing, having to backspace several times to make it seem coherent. 

L; ‘ _ eah we can do tht, where do u want to metup?’  _ \-  1 second ago

_ Well that was a mess. _

Lance tries to calm himself, seriously  _ not  _ wanting to let tears slip out. But  _ wow  _ it’s been a while since he’s relaxed, and he was so close to doing that but he felt so..  _ Empty.  _ Exhaustion pulled at his chest, making the pain worse. And--

K; ‘ _ You’re not okay right now, are you? _ ’ -  1 second ago

_ I’m really not slick.  _ Lance stares at the message with a frown,  _ he can’t lie to him.  _

L; ‘ _ Sorry _ ’ -  1 second ago

_ Fuck. _

K; ‘ _ I’m assuming you’re in your room right now, I’ll be there soon.’  _ \-  1 second ago

L; ‘ _ Okay _ ’ -  1 second ago

Lance leans back in his chair, setting the phone down onto the desk and letting out an uneasy breath. He stares at the clock in his room, letting himself just sit there. When his chest seems to dull, he lets himself doze. That is, until a loud knock happens upon his door, sending him jumping up and off his chair in surprise. He lets out a squeaky breath, clutching his chest and trying to calm down. He momentarily forgets there’s someone at the door in the first place until there’s another knock.

“Hold on,” He mumbles loud enough so the person on the other side can hear. Lance walks over to his mirror, giving himself a look over at his own appearance. 

_ You look like shit.  _ A snort escapes his mouth,  _ sounds like something Keith would say. _

But he’s decent enough, and sighs as he opens the door. The sight he’s met with immediately makes him tense up,  _ would it be bad to say that Keith looked like shit too? _

But not only that, he looked like a constipated mess between  _ pissed off  _ and  _ overly worried _ .

“Keith, um..” Lance starts, breaking the silence although not the stress in the air. “C-come in.” He stutters, stepping aside and letting the boy with the Mullet practically  _ stomp  _ his way in. The purple-eyed boy was a fuse lit, waiting to explode whatever was on the other side of it. And Lance had a feeling he was going to be the target of that explosion.

“So how are you..?” Lance asks awkwardly, sitting down on his bed when his legs basically screamed at him to do so.  _ Too much running lately,  _ he thinks, pouting on the inside. He just wanted to get into a better shape for himself, and not be so..  _ Lanky,  _ as Keith would say.

_ As Keith is right in front of him still. _

…

Lance wills himself to meet Keith’s eyes when the boy doesn’t answer him, and he’s met with a  _ burning  _ gaze that makes his chest flare. He visibly flinches, and just as he met his eyes he’s looking down again. 

“Don’t do that.” Keith grumbles, but there’s no malice behind it. And Lance wants to ask  _ don’t do what?  _ In the most cocky way, maybe get back to how he and Keith were in year one. But he’s  _ so tired.  _ And he just wants to..

_ Wants to.. _

His pain doesn’t dull,  _ he wants to be with Keith.  _ The pain lessens,  _ he just wants to sleep.  _ It flares back up.

_ Stop. _

“Lance..” Keith sighs out, and Lance feels the bed dip ever so slightly as the boy sits down next to him. “Talk to me, please.”

“Okay” The blue-eyed boy still can’t look Keith directly in the eyes, but staring at his shoes is quite easy.  _ Combat boots again,  _ Lance thinks. It makes his head ache less.  _ He knows Keith, he can talk with him. It’s okay. _

“I um. I want to,-- Yeah.”  _ Great job already.  _ His eyes squeeze shut as he tries to will away the stinging sensation now gathering like TV static in his chest,  _ what was going on in there?  _ “I’m sorry.” He says whole-heartedly, “I haven’t been a good friend and-- and I’m sorry. I won’t make excuses for that and you don’t even deserve this you deserve better because I’ve just been  _ shitty  _ and I could’ve texted you or-or--”

“Lance! Breathe.” Keith interrupts, “You’re talking way too quickly..”

“Sorry” Lance murmurs, bringing up a hand to rub at his eye tiredly.

“It’s okay, Lance. God I was..” Keith brings a hand and places it onto Lance’s knee, “When you were avoiding me I thought you just didn’t want to be friends any more-”   
  
“That’s not true--!”   
  
“I know, I know. I knew that-- and, you  _ could  _ have texted me. I get that. But you were stressed, yeah? Lance I won’t blame you for not being able to.. You know, just.. Function? No that’s not the right word for it-- I just,” Keith waves his hands around, “I just don’t blame you, okay? Apology accepted, now can I just..” He sighs, turning fully to Lance. “Let me help, okay? The only thing that irritated me most was you not.. Letting me help or opening up when you are in pain. You said you’d..” His hand moves to Lance’s chest, and the boy flinches once more. “You said you’d tell me.”

“It wasn’t that bad..” Lance whispers, and Keith pouts.

“Don’t lie to me either Lance, please. Just let me help.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.” Keith gently lowers Lance to lay down, the boy making a noise of confusion but letting himself be doted on. “Sleep for a bit, okay? I know you haven’t been doing any of that lately, you can’t function solely on Coffee.” He whispers, and Lance lets out a chuckle.

“That’s very hypocritical considering coffee is probably the  _ only  _ thing you drink,” Lance teases, eyes fluttering closed. It was hard to keep them open for some reason..

“Maybe so, but at least I eat  _ healthy  _ and not just gummy bears and cheetos.”

Lance gasps dramatically, head turning to bury his face into the pillow below him. “I can’t believe I’ve been betrayed like this.” He murmurs through the plush fabric. 

Keith snickers, leaning closer to Lance. He doesn’t quite lay down, but lays his head onto his hand as he stares down at the messy-clothed boy.

“Aren’t you the same person who indirectly called me out for wearing nothing but black on twitter?”

“You followed me??” Lance squeaks, face digging further into the pillow.

“Who do you think ‘Redlion’ is?”

“Ohmygod-” Lance whines,  _ this was not the plan at all.  _ Keith wasn’t supposed to have twitter!

_ He was a good bad influence on Mullet.  _

They fall into a comfortable silence, Lance momentarily forgetting his worries as he falls into a hopefully  _ deep  _ slumber and Keith.. Keith just watches him, relief swarming his face and all muscles once tense now relaxing.  _ He was so worried Lance would just disappear.  _

Just when Keith thinks Lance had fallen asleep, a sniffle interrupts the peaceful silence. Keith opens his eyes he didn’t even realize shut and looks in the direction of Lance, the boy still seemingly asleep but..

_ No. _

“Lance..”

_ Crap. _

“I’m sorry..” Lance’s voice whimpers out, and Keith sighs.

“It’s okay Lance.. It’s okay.” Keith whispers, hand rubbing up and down the other boy’s back. He eventually settles on just pulling him into a hug in an attempt to quiet down Lance’s sniffling and crying. The little noises he makes breaks the edges on Keith’s heart.

_ How he let’s someone get to him so easily. _

_ Would he have been able to even comfort someone like this without Lance to help him? _

….

Maybe Shiro would’ve taught him. Maybe he..

Maybe he could’ve been like this.

But Lance.. No..

_ Lance so easily broke down his walls,  _ it was scary.

So when he didn’t see Lance for most of this year or semester, he was scared he’d lost him.

_ Is this..? _

It can’t be love. Not yet, but Keith thinks it might just be that if Lance kept at it.  _ Being him and so damn lovable. _

_ Fuck he was gone. _

They sat like that in bed for the rest of the day, Keith barely awake when Hunk walked in and acknowledged them with a nod. He thinks he fell asleep after that, because when he opened his eyes again it was to Lance staring down at him with a stupid soft grin and baby blue eyes. 

_ And yeah,  _ Keith thinks,  _ he doesn’t want to lose this. _


	6. Mumbling Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving Quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a disaster but here we go!

When they reach the end of the semester, Lance is smiling like a goddamn idiot.  _ Again.  _ But this time it’s because he passed another year, equal to Keith. And you have  _ no idea  _ how happy he is for that boy. There might be a slight worry in his gut for next year but..  _ He’ll help Lance.  _ It’ll be better.

_ But why does it feel like something bad is coming? _

Maybe he shouldn’t have jinxed it, because the summer was fun and beautiful. Lance came back early from spending time with his family for half of it, and spent the rest of it just overly playing video games and goofing around in the desert with Keith. Keith, who usually stayed at the garrison during the summer, secretly enjoyed having Lance there. 

But of course. Again.

He jinxed it.

Because now Shiro is gone, and he’s calling bullshit on the garrison for claiming this.

_ He can’t be gone. _

Why would he be gone?

“Keith..” Lance calls his name, snapping him out of his trance of just staring at the TV in front of him.

Keith looks over to Lance, shaking his head and running off. Lance goes to chase after the purple-eyed boy, but a hand stops him.

“Hunk..” Lance mumbles, turning to the taller boy. His eyes starting to water and hands grasping at his own chest in desperation. 

_ Shiro’s gone, Keith is hurt, He still has a whole school year to get through and he’s not even a fighter pilot despite everything.  _

_ Shiro’s gone, Keith is hurt. _

_ Keith is hurt. _

_ Keith is-- _

“Lance, come on.” Hunk pulls the lanky boy into a hug, and Lance lets out a cry. “It’ll be okay, we’ll figure it out.” He murmurs softly, trying to reassure him the best he can.

But all Lance can think about is Keith.

When finally getting Keith alone in his room after a week of him avoiding Lance, he’s just.. Silent.

Lance hasn’t seen him this quiet since.. 

_ Well, since they first met. _

“Lance if you don’t have anything to say to me I’d much rather be in my room trying to figure out where my brother is.” Keith mutters, but Lance can see through him.

“You came to my room first, Keith.” He frowns, “and if you want to find out the truth, I’ll help. Just.. Please, talk to me. Like I.. Like I did with you last year. You made me talk so this is me.. Trying my best to help you too. And, I’m sorry.” Lance fidgets as Keith’s gaze reaches him, and he thinks he sees Keith’s entire expression crumble.

“Why are you apologizing..?” Keith breathes out, it almost sounds like a laugh. “You always..” Keith looks down to the ground, voice cutting off in his own sudden distress. 

And now it’s Lance’s turn to have his heart break, just at the sight of a single tear rolling down that beautiful boy’s face.

“Oh Keith..” Lance steps forward, bringing Keith into a tight hug. He lets purple-eyes cry into his shoulder, the boy mumbling ‘he’s not dead, he’s not dead.’

Lance only whispers reassurances back, ‘he’s alive, they lied, we’ll figure it out.’

Because as much as it would seem like Shiro is dead, it was impossible. It had to be. That ship was  _ built  _ for the Kerberos mission. How could it have failed? And most importantly, why lie about it?

Lance moves them over from where they stand, sitting on the bed and laying down.

They stayed like that, not saying anything until Keith had to go.

Lance let him go with the promise that if Keith needed anything, he’d be there. He’d always be there.

Keith already made that promise to Lance a while ago, but it seems like he broke it because in just a month he  _ left.  _ Kicked out.  _ Kicked out. _

_ No, nonononono. _

_ It was going so good, what went wrong? _

_ They were starting to tease each other again! They were-- they were-- they were okay. They were getting more and more revealed about Shiro-- why would he why would-- _

“Dude, are you okay?” Pidge’s voice interrupts his downward spiral of thoughts, and he whips his head around from where he sat on his bed.

_ He forgot about Pidge again. _

Earlier that semester he got a new roommate, and a bigger room. But all that mattered to him at the time when Pidge came was just  _ Keith  _ and _ finding Shiro.  _ And.. Studying.. To pass..

_ Is that why Keith left? Because they had to focus on studying too while looking for Shiro and he didn’t have time to do that? Why didn’t he take Lance with him? He would’ve gone. _

_ Or.. _

Fuck. He doesn’t actually know if he would have gone.

But he wasn’t given that chance to decide, now was he?

_ Technically he could still leave but he.. He couldn’t do that to his parents. They worked hard for him to get here he just can’t… _

_ Fuck. _

“Dude-”

_ And besides Keith was kicked out he didn’t choose to leave. Or.. Well no he punched a teacher so yes he did choose, didn’t he? Why would he.. _

_ He needs to text Keith again, he needs to.. Make sure he’s okay. He wants to help.. _

“LANCE!” He finally looks up to Pidge, flinching when he’s met with an angry look.

“Sorry Pidge, I was lost in thought there.” Lance smiles awkwardly, and Pidge rolls their eyes.

“It’s whatever, are you going to study with me and Hunk or no? We sorta have a fighter pilot position or whatever to work for now..” They mumble, eyebrow raising at Lance. “Or you do, not we. We were already in our positions--”

“I get it Pidge.” Lance grumbles, “Yeah I’m coming just, go on ahead without me.”

“Sure thing, and don’t forget your notebook this time.”

“I won’t.” The boy promises, and watches Pidge leave with another roll of their eyes.

He waits until he can’t hear their footsteps any more before grabbing his phone and staring at his text messages to and from Keith.

_ Still nothing. _

Maybe he should.. Text again..

…

L; ‘ _ please answer me back when you can I’m worried about you. _ ’ -  1 day ago

L; ‘ _ are you okay?’  _ \-  10 hours ago

L; ‘ _ Hello? _ ’ -  5 hours ago

L; ‘ _ Keith please if you’re reading these, answer me back. I just need to know you’re okay.’  _ \-  1 second ago

Lance shakily stands,  _ now he waits.  _ And as much as he hates it,  _ he needs to study.  _

Because life keeps going, despite his despair. And he really needs to do something otherwise his head might explode..

_ And studying is normal to him. So it’ll have to do. _

But he also can’t overwork himself. Otherwise Keith might--

…

_ Do nothing, he guesses.  _

Ten days later of basically no sleep, he finally gives up expecting a text back. He lets himself pass out, and instead of not sleeping he sleeps  _ most _ of the time. When he’s not studying, when he’s not in class. He’s in dream land. Because being awake  _ sucked  _ for a good month there.

But Hunk and Pidge manage to pull him out from his numbness, and soon he’s wanting to be awake more often. The joking around and playfulness don’t come for another month, and it comes slowly and painfully.

But he feels better, so perhaps it’ll be okay.

_ Seems like he jinxed it too, however.  _

Because as much as there’s the fun and hopefulness, there’s the empty spot where Keith used to be. And the pain in his chest that had returned soon after he left, but he just started to get used to it again. So it was as if he never met Keith, but he did and. Somehow that made it even worse.

Another three months later, he was very good friends with Pidge and his friendship with Hunk never dwindled. But he noticed that something was wrong with himself.

Imagine waking up,-- No that’s normal. Waking up is normal. But imagine going to sleep in your bed and waking up underneath it with a sore back. The sore back part would seem fine because he was asleep  _ on the hard ground _ , but it wasn’t like a..  _ There’s a crink in my back  _ kind of sore it was like..

He fell out of bed.

But maybe he did, and then.. Rolled under it.

That seemed logical, right?

No. Of course not. Because he’s been waking up under his bed every other day. And that, well that’s quite weird to Lance.

“Maybe you’re getting nervous for the pilot testing?” Hunk suggests, “I mean, you tossed in your sleep a lot when we first got here. I think it’d be normal if you fell out of bed and rolled.”

“But underneath my bed? Every time?” Lance pouts, tossing his pencil onto the desk in front of him.

“Sure, I did it when I was little.” Pidge hums, staring down intensely at their paper below. “I think you’re fine.”

“Maybe I’ll get some baby bars or something because honestly waking up with my back sore isn’t the greatest.” Lance sighs, and Pidge snorts.

“Well I don’t know about baby bars, but maybe put some pillows next to you? I have some extra in my room if you’d like them.” 

“That’d be nice, thank you Pidge.” The blue-eyed boy smiles, and Pidge hums.

“It’s no problem. Mom packed way too many, so..”

Yeah, Lance  _ definitely  _ appreciated that. Because of course, as soon as he tried this ‘mastery plan’, he still ended up underneath his bed.

With the pillows still there and no evidence that he rolled out of it.

_ What the fuck? _

_ Oh god was he going crazy?  _

_ Or was Hunk and Pidge playing a trick on him? _

He questions the both of them, but they just seem lost. Pidge suggested that maybe he rolled  _ over  _ the pillows but Lance pouted and tried stacking the pillows instead.

_ He still ended up under his bed. _

To make matters worse, the pain in his chest was every day now. As in like, normally it’d go away for a few hours at a time-- but now it was consistent.

And Lance knew what he needed, but what he needed wasn’t even texting him back.

It still didn’t make sense to why he needed Keith in the first place, but it worked time and time again before. But he’s  _ gone.  _ And Lance wouldn’t even know where to look for him.

So he deals with it, hiding dizzy spells from Hunk and Pidge whenever he stumbles over and almost falls on his face. He hides whenever the pain flares up like fire, by putting on a smile and turning his face towards a wall instead.

Obviously he couldn’t hide it for long, but as soon as Hunk and Pidge began to question why he looked like he had just stepped on a nail-- other things began happening. Stuff that he  _ definitely  _ could not hide from Hunk and Pidge.

Like his hand going through the wall when we went to lean on it, or Hunk for the first time seeing him  _ fall through  _ his bed and onto the floor.

They all sat in their room together, not speaking a word. Just staring at Lance with dumb-foundedly confused  _ and  _ concerned looks.

“Soooooo,” Lance starts, “Not the first time I’ve been in a room and had an awkward conversation before..”   
  
“I don’t think those were awkward conversations I think those were heartfelt moments mixed with awkward ones?” Hunk points out, and Lance snorts.

“You got me there.” Lance sighs, legs stretching across his bed. “If I’m being honest I really don’t know what to say because I have no idea what’s going on and I’m sorry you guys have to deal with--”   
  
“Lance don’t you dare-” Hunk’s  _ serious  _ voice leaks out and Lance shuts up, frowning and fidgeting. He messes with his bed sheets below him, huffing.

“Sorry.”

“Lance,” Hunk sighs, “I will admit I’m freaked out because I literally saw your hand go through the wall and I thought I was seeing things but then I saw you drop onto the floor through your bed, but you’re obviously just as confused so obviously we’re not going to blame you or shame you for anything because we’re your  _ friends  _ Lance.” 

“Hunk you tell me to breathe but you need to as well,” Lance laughs, though there’s no heart in it.

“I’m serious though Lance.” Hunk frowns, and Lance guiltily looks up.

“I know.”

Pidge has been oddly quiet the whole time, and Lance looks over to meet their gaze. But they seem lost in thought, their brain ticking as it works through information.

“Uh, Pidge..?” Lance murmurs, snapping Pidge out of their trance.

“Hm? Oh sorry, I’m just thinking about you phasing through walls means that aliens most definitely do exist.” Pidge smirks, and Hunk lets out an offended noise. 

“That is  _ not  _ the topic right now Pidge.” Hunk puffs out his cheeks, and Lance lets out a relieved giggle. He was glad they weren’t making this a bigger deal or treating him like some  _ animal.  _ Honestly that’s the expected reaction but he.. He didn’t know what he’d do if they treated him differently. Because he was already confused and lost- anything to add to that stress would make it worse.

“Ya-ya, shush.” Pidge waves their hand around, “I’ll see if I can find something that can help you Lance, because phasing through your bed clearly isn’t normal.” They drag their laptop closer to themselves, typing away with surprising excitement. 

“No shit,” Lance mumbles, making Pidge snort again.

“I have a question,” Hunk says, making Lance glance over to him away from Pidge. He just tilts his head, humming in acknowledgement. “Any reason why, aside from the phasing maybe-- have you been sick? Or uh, y’know. Clutching your chest as if you’re in pain--”

Lance frowns, simply shrugging and looking towards the floor. “My um, my chest just hurts. It has for most of my life but lately it’s been pretty bad.”

“Duuuuuuuuuuude,” Hunk stood up and crossed his arms,  _ maybe it was a bit dramatic but Hunk thought it was necessary.  _ “Phasing through walls is one thing, but pain is another. You can’t hide your pain man. What if it’s something serious??”

“..Sorry.” 

“ _ Lance. _ ” Hunk blows a raspberry and shakes his head. “Co’mere’.” He says, arms extending outwards for a hug. Lance gives in, standing up and stepping over to the taller boy. He sinks into the hug, embracing the warmth given to him, making the pain in his chest duller.

“Okay, so mostly of what comes up is stupid wikipedia pages.” Pidge groans, “Aside from phasing through the wall and chest pains, because yes I think they’re connected but I won’t assume. You could just have a chest problem-- but I’m adding it into my searches just in case. But aside from all that- is there anything else?”

Lance remains quiet when he pulls away from the hug, thinking over what else strange happens with him..

But the only thing that comes to mind is Keith.

“There is, maybe one thing.” Lance mumbles, sighing when Hunk and Pidge look to him with expectation. “...Keith.”

“Keith?” Hunk questions, “Oh man, please don’t tell me it’s because he left and broke your heart or something cheesy like that-”

Lance visibly flinches, looking down to the ground with a deep frown. “Nevermind this is stupid I shouldn’t have--”

“Lance, no, it’s okay.” Pidge says, hitting Hunk on the shoulder with a glare.

“Ow what was-” Hunk’s eyes widen and he gasps, “Oh god I didn’t mean it like that I’m so sorry Lance-” 

“No-- No it’s, It’s fine. Um. He, he had his reasons, for leaving. It’s okay. He just uh, he made the chest pains go away when I was with him. That’s all.” Lance fidgets, not wanting to look up again. 

“Where is he now..? If you don’t mind me asking?” Pidge’s head tilts, the boy-- or uh, Lance doesn’t actually know because everyone else calls them a boy but Lance has seen Pidge not react that great to being called a guy. So he just stuck with trying to be respectful-- and make Pidge as comfortable as possible. 

“He, I don’t know. He just left and, didn’t say anything.” Lance’s chest tightens, and it feels like someone stabbed him and squeezed around the wound.  _ Ow ow ow ow--  _ Lance grips his chest, a wheeze leaving his mouth. Both Hunk and Pidge look alarmed, sharing glances that Lance can only guess it communication through  _ eyes.  _

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you Lance, but I think that finding Keith might be wise.” Pidge pushes their glasses up on their face anime-styled, serious look clear on their expression. “You can’t go through your day hurting  _ and  _ phasing through objects, not that Keith has anything to do with the phase part but, it might.”

“I, I don’t even know where I’d look..” Lance admits, shrugging.

“Well.. What were you two doing before you left?” Pidge questions, and Hunk gives them a questionable look. 

“We were.. Looking for Shiro.” Lance sighs, even more guilt eating at him for not continuing the search. But Keith wasn’t around and he…  _ No, that still doesn’t excuse it. He believed that Shiro was still alive and Shiro was his friend too. He should’ve kept looking. _

“Buddy, it’s not your fault. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not your fault.” Hunk places a hand on Lance’s shoulder, and Lance puffs out air from his cheeks.

“Stop reading me.” Lance states, making Hunk snort.

“You were looking for Shiro? You mean you think he’s still alive?” Pidge questions, eyes widening when Lance turns to them with a determined glance and nod. “Cool, I do too.”

“Really?”    
  


“Yeah,” Pidge smiles, seemingly relieved. 

“Have you tried texting Keith?” Hunk asks, but then pauses. “Wait, no you have, nevermind.”

“No that’s actually- a good question. But, has he read any of them yet?” Lance blinks at Pidge’s question, then shakes his head.

“Not that I know of.. I think he might not have signal.. Or something. Or he’s just ignoring me.”

“Okay so.. He can’t get texts, and yes I’m assuming that he’s not ignoring you because he clearly  _ means  _ something to you so I’d like to believe when I first meet this ‘Keith’ I  _ won’t  _ have to punch him in the face for leaving you in pain like this---”

“ _ Pidge.”  _ Hunk waves his finger around like a stern mother.

“Right, Right. Sorry, but, he has no signal. You both were looking for Shiro so maybe he’s still looking.. So he wouldn’t have gone far  _ and  _ we’re in a desert. So I’m going to guess that he’s somewhere in the desert but just, far from the garrison.” Pidge seems happy with their guess, and when their fingers start rapidly typing on the laptop Lance gains hope. It’s certainly finicky, but it’s there.

“Thank you guys.” Lance says in pure appreciation and honesty, “If I was alone in this I’d probably be a goner.”

“It’s seriously no problem man, who knows. Maybe you’ll be like, Danny phantom or something. Get a cool outcome and a boyfriend who comes back and loves you.” Hunk really just  _ doesn’t  _ know how to  _ not  _ say  _ things  _ he probably  _ shouldn’t  _ be saying.

_ Wait did he say boyfriend- _

“Hunk you should’ve stopped at Danny phantom.” Pidge comments, “But you’re right.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” Lance finally squeals out, flushing for the first time in months.

“I’ll be the judge of that when I meet him.”

“Actually  _ we’ll  _ be the judges. Team Punk won’t allow bad boyfriends.” Hunk smirks, proud of himself.

“I can’t believe I’m being betrayed like this.” Lance groans.

“What’re you gonna do? Call us out on your inactive twitter?” Pidge snickers and Lance gasps offendedly. 

“How dare you! I was very proud of that Twitter, okay?” 

“Then what happened to it?”

“Keith happened.” Lance mutters dejectedly, sheepishly looking off to the side.

“So what you’re telling me,” Pidge starts, though not without sympathy for the look Lance had given them. “Is that you don’t want to have twitter unless you have your  _ boyfriend  _ to make fun of on there?” 

“Pidge!” Lance whines, “It’s not funny. Frowny face.”

“Did you just frowny face at me?” Pidge says, now just as offended.

“Frowny open mouth--”

“Please shut up-”

“You shut up first-”

“No you,”   
“No you.”

“When we find your boyfriend that hasn’t made contact with you in months I’m gonna tell him about this.”

“Please don’t he won’t let me live it down.”

“So he is your boyfriend?”   
“NO!”

“Soooo, Pidge did you find anything?” Hunk interrupts their bickering, making Pidge laugh and Lance pout.

“I’ve narrowed down locations on where Keith could be, but I don’t have anything on why Lance is phasing through walls. So we have one lead and something that cannot be explained by humanity. Thus leading me to believe that Lance is an alien.” Pidge says as if it was a matter of fact.

“I’m not an alien!” Lance sqwuacks, “What happened to thinking I was a ghost?”

“Well you’re most certainly not a ghost because otherwise you’d be dead, unless ghosts aren’t what I think they are. Maybe you’re just a superhuman or something but honestly alien makes the most sense because alien is unknown. And you are unknown and yet to be figured out, thus, for now, an alien.” Pidge closes her laptop after writing something down, then handing it off to Lance who takes it with a scoff.

“Stop analyzing me,” Lance looks at the paper, head tilting at the coordinates written down. “So you think he’s here..?”

“I will analyze you as much as I want until we figure out what’s wrong,” Pidge snatches the paper back, “and these are just possible locations. I’ve located a shack pretty far from here and a couple other buildings. But I think he’s more likely to be in the abandoned places. So that’s the shack and.. An old toilet building.”

“An old.. What now?” Hunk blinks.

“It was an old garrison building for toilets.” Pidge gestures to the coordinates on the top of the page, “But I really don’t think he’d be there. So the shack is our best guess.”

“How would we get there?” Hunk seems nervous, most likely not wanting to get expelled for leaving the garrison without permission. Lance doesn’t blame him. He didn’t ask for this and neither did Lance, but this is what’s happening.

So he guesses he just has to go with what works best.

And right now that’s finding Keith. Because if he’s being honest? He was terrified. He felt scared and alone, despite Hunk and Pidge being here. He wants his family, he wants his Mother.

_ He wants Keith.  _

“If we’re going to not get caught we’ll need to take a vehicle that won’t be detected by the Garrison’s censors, so I’m guessing a car without the enhanced engine would do. I know a teacher with one, if we stole it for the night I think we can get it back by the morning. But I’d say we get it on the weekend, she usually doesn’t go out on Sundays so.” Lance doesn’t know how Pidge knows all this, but he’s certainly thankful.

“So sneak out, steal a car, sneak past more staff, and drive a few miles to a shack where Keith might not even be.” Hunk says, “Did I get all that?”

“Yup” Pidge pops the P and smirks,  _ evil, evil child.  _

“I’m glad we started with phasing through the wall talk, to teasing Lance for having a boyfriend--” Lance interrupts with a ‘hey!’ before Hunk continues, “and onto stealing a car in order to get to said boyfriend so Lance’s chest doesn’t hurt.”

“Not my boyfriend,” Lance mutters.

“Right, but yes Hunk. This is an upgrade from when you sneak into the cafeteria’s kitchen in order to bake everyone a thanksgiving dinner. Like. Every friday.” Pidge comments, making Hunk now pout.

“Well I do everyone a favor, their food is horrendous and we deserve something better!”

“You gonna preach that to iverson?”

“I wish I could.”

“Well maybe after this we can because we’ll be full on rebels--” Lance snickers, “I honestly feel ridiculous, I’m not dreaming, right?” He squeaks when Pidge pinches him, and rubs his arm with a frown.

“Nope, you’re awake. Normally I’d say that I’d rather have something else to do right now but this is how life is going.” Pidge leans back onto their bed, and Lance sighs. 

_ Exactly what I’m saying. _

Lance sits down, knocking his shoes off and going criss-cross. “I think we should sleep on this, and meet up again tomorrow night.”

“Yeah, that works. I’ll let you know if I come up with another idea, otherwise we’re going to be stealing a car this Saturday night.” Pidge hibernates underneath their covers, stretching their arms above them.

“I guess it’s better than forming a gang,” Hunk comments, making Lance and Pidge snicker.


	7. Craving You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is a cowboy, probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly just writing and going for it; so if there's any errors let me know and YEEHAW!

When the trio wakes up on Saturday, nerves are going through the roof. But most importantly, Lance again, is  _ not  _ doing great. As much as he tried to shrug off the pains through the day, today of all days they decided to leave him breathless.

Hunk sat with him at the end of the day, rubbing his back as he laid on his chest in bed. The pressure of a pillow against himself helped somewhat, but  _ god  _ it hurt.

Hunk currently was an overly doting  _ Mom,  _ but adding onto being worried he was also shaken by Lance’s hand going through the blankets and just  _ staying there.  _ When trying to grab it, Hunk gasps when his hand just goes through Lance’s, hitting the blanket and making Lance shiver. 

“Hunk I don’ feel good.” Lance mumbles miserably, not even paying attention to his fading hand.

“I know bud, we’ll get going soon okay?” Hunk tries to reassure, bringing a hand to run through Lance’s hair. The blue-eyed boy just hiccups, making Hunk frown. “Bud..”

“I-I didn’t ask for this Hunk,” Lance stutters, fresh tears wettening his cheeks. “I-I don’t, I don’t-- I’m so confused.. This isn’t right-- I don’t--” Hunk shushes him softly, rubbing a thumb over his cheek to wipe away the tears. 

“I promise we’ll figure it out, we’ll get through this.”

“We’re good to g-” Pidge walks in, but stops herself when spotting Lance in bed. “Is he..?”

“He’s in pain and upset, but we can still go. We--” Hunk inhales shakily, “We have to go.”

“Alright..” Pidge steps over to the two, helping Hunk get Lance into a standing position. His whines and hiccups make things just  _ upsetting.  _ The atmosphere is tense and worrying.

Lance’s hand is practically  _ see-through _ now, but still there. So maybe that’s a plus, but it still makes Hunk and Pidge work faster. They can’t go too quickly if they want to not get caught, but the worry made them solely determined on getting out. 

Turns out it was much easier than anticipated, most of the other cadets were asleep and most of the adults were turned in for the night. The only thing that was worrying were the guards, and even then they seemed too bored to really pay attention to what was going on around them. 

Lance passes out for a moment, and Hunk has to carry him into the stolen car. He dotes over the boy, before Pidge makes him get into the front of the car to drive. Pidge takes his place as Hunk starts the car, taking them out of the parking lot rather quietly for a noisy car.

Pidge feels awkward, not quite knowing what to do with Lance who seems to be going in and out of sleep. They just copy what Hunk had done before, running a hand through the boy’s hair.

_ Don’t you dare disappear on me.  _ Pidge thinks,  _ you’re a good friend. _

“Okay.. We’re almost there.” Hunk mumbles, “If he’s not here I swear to god---”

“Very Sassy Hunk,” Pidge hums, feeling somewhat better now that they were close to their destination and Lance’s hand seemed to be not as bad as it was before. She was able to touch it, however the hand itself went through the car seat whenever he rolled over.  _ God that’s weird.  _

“I think I see it, yeah that’s definitely a shack.” Hunk pauses, squinting at the building in front of him. “Is that.. A hover bike?”   
  
Pidge immediately looks over, eyes widening comically. “If he stole a goddamn hover bike then color me impressed, holy fucking shit--”

“Language-”

“Shut up Hunk, you have a potty mouth just as bad as I do.”

“Since when?”

“Foolish of you to think I don’t hear you in the kitchen, cursing when you drop a pan on the ground because you don’t want the staff to hear you.”

  
“Called out,” Lance’s voice startles them both, but it certainly brings relief. Hunk snorts while Pidge grabs his fading hand and squeezes it. Lance has to take a moment to process his hand being semi-see-through, though doesn’t comment because as long as he can feel Pidge’s hand on his own it’s okay.

Then of course he looks up as soon as the hover-bike is in full view, and his mouth opens as to comment but immediately closes.

_ Yeah that’s definitely something Keith would have. _

He starts to get nervous as they stop the car, parking right next to the shack.

_ Was Keith in there right now? Asleep? Awake? Would he wait for them to leave? Would he want Lance to leave? Does he hate--- _

“Lance, buddy” Hunk snaps him out of it, “Let’s see if he’s here, yeah? Can you uh, can you walk?”

_ Can he walk? _

Lance pushes the car door open, silently aware of Pidge’s presence closely behind him and not letting go of his hand. He takes a step out, then another, and he thinks he’s okay. He gives a nod to both Hunk and Pidge, but his next step isn’t as coordinated. His foot phases through the ground and he’s suddenly falling onto the ground. But arms are quick to catch him.

…

He doesn’t think Pidge’s arms are this big, and they definitely aren’t Hunk’s arms.

_ Only if his vision would stop getting all black and splotchy. _

_ Oh god is it getting lighter? No it’s getting darker.. No.. _

“Lance.. Lance!”  _ That certainly sounds like Keith. _

“Fuck-- How long has he-” There’s a hand on his cheek and a hand on his hip. One hand rubs up and down his side while the other swipes across the cheek with it’s thumb. Trying to coax him back to the real world and not the dizziness of a fake blacked-out void.

He thinks they’re walking now, and he can sorta see where they’re going. But he feels tired, worn out but..

His chest doesn’t hurt.

Relief is clear in his dazed eyes as he’s laid down on a hard-cushioned couch. The hands never leave him, and he’s grateful for that. The hands.. Keep him here.

_ Keep him here… _

“You can sleep, it’s okay..”

_ He can? _

Lance’s eyes slip close, and he sighs.  _ This is nice. _

When his eyes open again, he still feels in a daze but.. Certainly more aware.

And he definitely was not in his dorm.

A confused noise escapes him, panic now flooding his chest. But not at the fact that he was in a random shack, but because the hands were gone.

_ What hands? _

Why did it matter?

“Lance!”

_ Keith? _

“..Keith?” He questions aloud this time, eyes glancing over to where Keith was now crouching right beside him. Forcing him to lay back down,  _ he hadn’t even realized he had started to sit up. _

_.. _

_ Oh and the hands were back.. That’s good. The hands are good. _

“Yeah, Yeah it’s me.” Keith smiles, but Lance can see the guilt eating at his features.

“...Don’t do that..” Lance mumbles, and Keith frowns in confusion.

“My hands? You don’t want--”   
Lance panics again when Keith tries to take his hands away, and quickly pulls them back.    
“No! Not-- Not that-- the hands.. The hands are okay they’re.. They’re good.”

Keith is confused by this, but thinks he gets it as he places one of his hands in Lance’s hair.

_ Comfort, maybe. _

“Don’t do what then..?” Keith questions.

“Don’t.. Don’t look guilty you, you didn’t do anything wrong-”   
“..Lance..” Keith sighs, moving to take away his hands but gets startled as a whine escapes the blue-eyed boy. “Hey hey hey- It’s okay.” He quickly reassures, “I’m not taking them away. Just moving them. See?” Lance watches carefully as the hands move to his cheeks, however still scared they would leave him. For extra safety-measures he places his own hands atop Keith’s, not caring about the flush that dances across both their noses.

“Lance I.. I just.. Left you, when I promised I’d be there and-- You.. You were in so much pain-” Keith’s eyes shut close tight, and he lets out a shaky breath. “I’m an idiot..”

“Y-You are,” Lance admits, getting a scoff-laugh from Keith. “But you wanted to find Shiro, and, I don’t blame you for that.”

Keith’s purple-eyes turn fond, but they still seem filled to the brim with grief.

“I could’ve snuck in, if Pidge and Hunk snuck here so easily.. I could’ve just.. Visited you or something.”

“Or answer my texts..?” Lance questions, and Keith looks sheepishly off to the side.

“I uh, there’s no power out here. So my phone has been dead for months.” 

“That explains it.” Lance hums, “It’s still not your fault and since we’re probably just gonna be back and forward we can just agree to disagree right now.”

“Lance.. You wouldn’t have had to drive out all the way out here in a stolen car, practically  _ passing out  _ all because you had to be near me to be okay.” Keith states, worry etched in his features and not leaving any time soon. “I told you to tell me when you were hurting and I just left. Shiro or no Shiro.. You’re still important to me and I..” His voice shakes, “I screwed up.”

“Keith…”

“So, yeah. Agree to disagree.” Keith sighs, bringing his hand to once again run it through Lance’s hair.

They sit there for a few minutes, Keith giving Lance a chance to fully wake up and Lance giving Keith a chance to think.

“So where are.. Pidge and Hunk?” Lance questions, eyes searching the shack as he sits up. He thinks he’d be okay with the hands leaving him now, but Keith keeps one holding Lance’s and he’s grateful for that.

“They had to get back to the campus, said they would tell everyone you’re sick-- which isn’t completely false. But they’ll be back tonight.” Keith’s hand squeezes Lance’s, “You scared the shit out of me when you fell like that I.. I don’t see you for months and you just.. God I’m sor-”

“No apologizing. You’ll turn into me.” Lance smiles softly, and Keith snorts. 

“I think I’ll, keep my  _ emo  _ attire, yeah?” He jokes, making Lance snort back. 

“Right. Emos don’t apologize.”   
“Hey!”

“Okay, sometimes they don’t apologize.”

“Now I just feel worse-”

“No wait no-”

“I’m kidding,” Keith’s thumb rubs circles into Lance’s hand in reassurance.

“Okay, my heart can’t take anything else for the next week. God.” Lance sighs, leaning back on the couch.

“Believe me, mine can’t either but. We’re here now. I’m-- I’m glad you’re here.” Keith admits, and Lance falls against Keith’s shoulder. 

“I’m glad I’m here too.”

They fall into conversation, Lance asking about the conspiracy theories all over the shack and Keith rolling his eyes as he explains that  _ No Lance, they’re not for aliens. _ But for Shiro, it would seem. Lance is left in awe, Keith getting so far in the middle of a desert. He tries to stand to get a better look, but his wobbly legs stop him and Keith has to catch him before he falls over.

_ Insert a quick lecture on not pushing himself too hard. _

The conversation changes into what’s been happening for the past months, and Lance catching Keith up on  _ twitter drama.  _ Keith seems on intent on listening to everything Lance has to say, and Lance thinks he must’ve been alone for a while out here if twitter drama was entertaining to him.

“So you’ve been.. Okay? You’re getting enough to eat, right?” Lance questions as the sun starts to set, he’s been delaying this question but. Living in a shack without any power in the middle of the desert for months? Yeah Lance was worried.

Keith glances over with a soft look from where he was standing in front of his ‘conspiracy’ board. He strolls over with a few steps and sits down, pulling Lance to lean against himself. “I have been,” He hums, “This place may not have power but it does have water, so I’ve been able to wash and not be a, what did you call me? A ‘Stinky Mullet?’”

Lance lets out a laugh, “You remember that?”

“Of course I do, it’s one of our more memorable moments.” Keith chuckles, “That and sneaking into the Kitchen while Hunk was cooking and stealing his towel every time he left the room to get something else so he thought there was a rat around.” 

The blue-eyed boy giggles, “We were the rats.”

“We still are the rats.”

“As so it would seem.”

Falling into a silence, Lance lets himself think. He thinks about his family getting excited for him getting his acceptance letter into the garrison, he thinks about meeting Hunk for the first time, he thinks about how scary it was to fly as a practice pilot for the very first time. And how scary it was to meet Mullet for the first time, or more so confusing. How they spent about two years becoming good friends, maybe even better friends than Hunk and him. (Though no one could be like Hunk, the embodiment of a teddy bear.) He remembers meeting Pidge, and how they never got to meet Keith properly before he had been kicked out.

He wonders how Pidge and Keith reacted to each other, he wishes he could’ve seen that.

_ Hopefully they didn’t give Keith a hard time. _

Lance quietly looks up, squeaking in surprise at the sight of Purple eyes staring at him. Or,  _ Admiring? _

Keith doesn’t even look away when he’s caught,  _ wow.  _

He flushes, heart thumping with his stupid lovey-dovey nerves.

_ Wait, love- _

_ Fuck. _

Quickly he realizes that he would have to leave this soon. Go back to the garrison and…

_ He doesn’t want to. _

It’s such a selfish thought, isn’t it?

To throw away everything he worked for just because he wanted to be with someone.

_ Keith did it, to find someone. To find Shiro. _

So does..  _ Maybe there was something to this. Keith loved Shiro like a brother, people will always do dumb things for the people they love. _

But does he love Keith?

He meets purple eyes again and it’s not that hard to think that he just might.

_ Is it foolish to find love when you’re young? _

“What’s on your mind?” Keith questions, startling him out of his thoughts.

“I..” Lance sighs, looking down to his hand which somehow found Keith’s while he was thinking. They weren’t quite connected, but they were atop one another. Keith’s hand is very warm and comforting, and his own hand probably cold despite being in a warm shack.

“You..?” Keith connects their hands now, squeezing Lance’s with a reassuring embrace.

“I don’t think I want to leave.” Lance hears Keith’s breath hitch, and he sighs. “It’s selfish, I know.”

“No, Lance-- It’s. It’s not selfish.” Keith tugs Lance impossibly closer, “If it’s selfish then. I’m selfish. Because I want you here too. But I could never ask that of you because-- you have a future. And to take that away from you-- that’d. That’d be wrong of me.”

Lance presses his forehead against Keith’s, a long sigh escaping him. “But it is wrong to want to be selfish..?”

“Is this what you want..? You’d rather be with me rather than be a fighter pilot like we both.. Like you wanted so badly?” Keith brings a hand to lay over Lance’s which had found its way onto the Mullet boy’s cheek. 

“It feels wrong to say yes but I want to,” Lance then laughs, though it comes out like a cry. “Keith I don’t think I want to leave you.” He breathes out shyly, “It hurt to see you go and not just because of my chest, I was so alone.” Keith’s grip on his side tightens, “I can have my family, my Mother, Hunk, and Pidge. And even the whole garrison. But none of them compare to you.”

“Lance…” Keith is trying his hardest not to cry,  _ how did Lance do this to him? _

_ How did Lance come into his life and make him do anything for him without even asking? _

“I’m too much, aren’t I?” Lance smiles, and Keith snorts.

“You’re never too much for me, you’re certainly cheesy but, never too much.”

Lance brings his hands down to Keith’s chest, gripping the boy’s shirt and gently messing with the folds and wrinkles.

“I don’t want you to go,” Keith starts, making Lance meet his eyes as their foreheads still touch. “But I do think you should go back. Think about it for a few days, okay?” When Lance doesn’t respond for a long pause he pulls the boy into an embrace. “I know this is all very.. Confusing. But it doesn’t have to be. You know what you want and.. I know what I want. It’s not wrong to want things- and it’s certainly not selfish. You know what’s best for you and I know what’s best for me.” He lays them both down on the stiff couch, softly continuing. “I wanted to find Shiro and the Garrison refused to tell me anything. So I left. That was my decision to throw away the possibility of having a future as a fighter pilot. Because Shiro is so much more important to me than flying just to fight for people who lie.”

Keith’s eyes run over Lance’s face, seeing that stupid fond look he fell for and gives back. Those stupid.. Baby blue eyes that look beautiful when the stars reflect upon them. Or when the sun lightens them up to the world. When they don’t need a sun or stars to shine because he’s talking about something he’s passionate about.

“But listen.. You’re also important to me. But you’re on earth, and you’re not even that far away. So if you’re at the garrison, I won’t have to worry about you and you can visit whenever you need to. Because the one thing I  _ will  _ worry about is your pain, and if you don’t come to me I  _ will  _ burst into the garrison myself.” He murmurs strictly, making Lance smile. 

“Maybe I’m saying too much but, even after just a year of knowing you it’s worth it. Uh- getting to know you, that is, I-. I want to know you. And, I’d be happy to spend-- as long as I can-- knowing you.” Keith’s face is an explosion of red, and Lance’s isn’t any better. Why did this make him so warm inside? 

_ If Hunk said this to me it’d feel too intimate but I wouldn’t be blushing.  _ Lance thinks, he'd be grateful for such a good friend.

But this is Keith.

Stupidly pretty Keith.

Stupidly  _ beautiful  _ Keith.

_ It doesn’t feel like friendship, it feels like something else entirely new. _

“I want to know you too Keith-- if you’ll have me for all that time.” Lance hums, and lays his head down on Keith’s shoulder. “And I.. Yeah, I’ll go back. But just.. I’m gonna text Pidge to get you something to charge your phone.” He murmurs, already grabbing his phone from the coffee table next to the couch. “Did you see if you had a signal or not?”

Keith tilts his head, humming, “I didn’t, but I’d assume no because there’s no other building aside from the garrison close to here.”

“I’ll just text her for something to help with that too then.” Lance states, fingers typing away.

“So, what is this for?” Keith questions dumbly, and Lance looks up to see if he was joking or not but nope. He wasn’t.

“..To text you and make sure you’re okay out here and call you?” 

“Oh, I’m not-- Smart.”

“Actually you are, but sometimes just oblivious. I think it’s the mullet’s fault.”

“Stop blaming my hair on everything--”   
“Absolutely not.”

“So..” Lance mumbles as he places his phone off to the side again.

“So..” Keith repeats, hand finding its place into Lance’s hair again.

“I think that’s the longest thing you’ve said, aside from when you ranted about Mothman back in our first Semester.” Lance smirks, and Keith scoffs.

“It’s only because you’re easy to talk to, it’s like the words just come out and I can’t stop.” Keith admits, making Lance coo.

“awww , I like cheesy Keith!” He giggles when Keith pinches him on the side, making a pouty face. “Only because you make me cheesy. You got the cheese all over me.”

“Oh really? I’m so glad I’m like, one of your only influences.”

“Yes, one of like, five.”   
“One of five?”

“Well,” Keith hums, “There’s You, the cheesy-lov-- errr, Social,-- Influence.” He coughs awkwardly, Lance snorting in response. “There’s Shiro,” Keith tries not to let himself frown, “The brother. Taught me patience, but uh, yeah.” He glances off to the side, going quiet for a moment before looking back to Lance with an uneasy smile. Lance just squeezes Keith in their embrace, being so so patient with him. 

“Then there’s Hunk and Pidge. I don’t know Pidge too well but I can tell she’s smart, and she already taught me something new so.. However she told me not to tell you. So she’s both a smart influence and an evil one, I think I’ll be good friends with her.” He snorts, and Looks down to Lance looking overly confused. “What?”

“You’re calling Pidge her..?” The blue-eyed boy questions, and Keith blinks.

“Yeah? Isn’t she.. Did I assume wrong?”

Lance thinks it over, eyebrows furrowing. “I don’t know, I’ve been sorta uh, just calling them neither because I don’t think they’re a boy but--”   
“Oh, you don’t-- Oh.” Keith lets out a small laugh, “Yeah Pidge is-- I don’t know about pronouns but I do know that she’s Matt’s little sister.”

“...Who?” 

_ A month of knowing Pidge and he still doesn’t know.  _ Keith thinks, ruffling Lance’s hair and making him pout.

“Matt uh, Matt went up to space with Shiro. They were pretty good friends but I get how you wouldn’t know Matt. I never saw him that much either. But I think he made Shiro less serious-- Uh, that’s off-topic. But, yeah Pidge is-- Matt’s little sister. I probably should’ve let her tell you that herself but that’s my fault.” Keith sighs.

“How did you know she-- they-- she? She was Matt’s little sister?” Lance questions.

“They looked too much alike, that and I’ve seen Pidge with long hair before. I’m guessing she’s pretending to be a boy just to be in the garrison, though I’m not sure why.” Keith ponders, hand absentmindedly rubbing up and down Lance’s back now. “I’ll let her explain the rest to you, I think I’ve said too much already.”

“That’s okay.” Lance hums, eyes shutting in contentment. “So who are your other ‘influences’?”

“Oh- hm. Well Hunk-- I think I’ve actually picked up baking from him. That and I’m better with hugs.” Keith smirks and Lance laughs quietly, nodding. “And there was.. Adam. You never-- Saw Adam, I don't think.”

“No, I have-- he’s one of the teachers, right?” Lance questions, and Keith shrugs.

“Something like that, he was uh. Don’t tell Shiro I told you when we see him again-- Adam was Shiro’s fiance.” 

“WHAT?” Lance suddenly sits up, surprise written all over his face. Keith is bewildered at the reaction, “How did I not know about a Fiance?!”

“They were very discrete and Adam was always busy, plus when Adam was at Shiro’s place I was usually in your room. So we never caught them together-- or at least you didn’t.” Keith says, shrugging once more.

Lance plops back down onto Keith with a grumble, “I know twitter tea but I don’t know real life tea..”

Keith snorts, “Yeah well, they sorta. Called it off.”

Lance tries to hide his surprise, not wanting to be rude and dramatic but the gasp that escapes him gives him away. Keith pretends not to notice, it was a sore subject so honestly he shouldn’t be smiling at Lance being  _ Lance.  _

“Yeah uh, Adam didn’t like that Shiro was going into space. Shiro-- Shiro was uh.” Keith swallows nervously, looking off to the side. “Nevermind it’s-- Yeah.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything.” Lance states, hands reaching up to cup the boy’s face  _ again. _

“Yeah I- Thank you.” Keith puts his hands over Lance’s and smiles, “So, want to tell me about your influences?”

Lance’s eyes lit up immediately and he began rambling, Keith relieved to be quiet again. He holds Lance close, feeling the rumble of his chest as he spoke with passion. 

When Lance starts to ramble about garlic knots, Keith’s mind for some reason does that thing where it hooks onto a thought and ignores everything else happening.

His eyes wander down to Lance’s sides, curiosity blooming in his chest.

_ Was Lance ticklish? _

He’s pretty sure he knows the answer already, it was easy to tell when he and Lance poked and prodded at each other constantly whenever they were around. But he wasn’t too sure, considering Lance liked to hide his reactions in order to not give Keith the satisfaction of a  _ ‘yelp’  _ or a pout.

Lance was still talking, but all Keith wanted to do was poke his fingers into Lance’s sides. It was like a strong  _ urge  _ beckoning him. The blue-eyed boy tilts his head and stops his rambles when Keith’s hands wander from his back to his sides.

“Watcha doin..” 

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Keith hums innocently, and Lance squints. But his eyes suddenly widen and he gasps.   
“Don’t you dare!”

Keith’s hands stay in place, keeping Lance from moving. “Are you gonna persuade me not to?”

“No, you’re just gonna be a good friend and not embarrass me.” Lance pouts. 

“Hmm, well I’m pretty sure I’m a pretty  _ great  _ friend so that doesn’t apply to me.” He pokes Lance’s side, making the boy squeak.

“You’re gonna downgrade!”   
“That sounds more like a threat rather than a plea-” Keith runs his fingers across Lance’s sides, pressing down in different areas and beginning his attack. Lance immediately squeals, trying to get away. Keith ends up pinning the boy down on the couch, Lance squirming and laughing. 

“Whhhyy--” Lance whines as the attack continues, wheezing in giggles. “Stooop, I’m gonna--”  _ Snort,  _ “Call you out--”

“Hm? What was that?”

“KEEITH”

Keith stops, ruffling Lance’s hair and standing up and off the boy. Lance is left breathless, trying not to smile as he pouts. “What was that for?”

“Oh, nothing.” Keith hums, stepping over to his ‘conspiracy’ board and looking at one of the many papers across it. 

“I’m gonna get my payback, mark my words.” Lance puffs out his cheeks as he sits up on the couch, looking over to Keith. 

“I’ll watch my back then,” Keith smirks over his shoulder, and Lance flushes.

_ Goddamn it. _

“Hey Lance?”

Lance’s head tilts, “Yeah?” He hums as he carefully stands up. He wasn’t as wobbly as he had been before, and he steps over to Keith. The Mullet boy in question gently grabs his hand, perhaps making sure he wouldn’t fall over again. Or just.. For comfort.

Either way, Lance still appreciated it.

“When you go back.. For a few days or-- for the rest of the school year. Or-- Yeah. You know.” Keith pauses, letting out a shaky breath. “Can you see if you can find more information on Shiro and send it to me? If uh. Pidge can help me with my phone.”   
  
Lance squeezes Keith’s hand, “Of course I can- or I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.” Keith smiles sadly at him, and Lance sighs, pulling him into a hug. “We’ll get him back.”

“Can you promise that?” Keith questions, reluctant. 

Lance goes quiet as he gently noses Keith’s neck.

“Lance?”

“I don’t know.” Lance admits, “But I-- I promise that I won’t give up. Wherever he is.. He deserves to come back home.”

Keith trembles ever so slightly, “He does.” He whispers.

When Pidge and Hunk return, it’s already midnight. Lance and Keith were sleepily chatting, and barely noticed the door open. For some goddamn reason Keith almost pulled out a knife--  _ Yeah Lance saw that and shot him a look, in which Keith didn’t seem to catch. _

Lance reluctantly stands, accepting a tight hug from Hunk and a pat on the back from Pidge. He shoots her-- or them-- uh, Lance thinks he’ll figure it out later. He shoots them a fond look, though one of secret guilt. He wished he knew it wasn’t just Shiro missing but Matt too, but the day they had gone missing all he had focused on was Shiro.

_ Wait if.. _

_ No that would mean her father is missing too because Matt’s dad.. _

_ Oh no. _

_ How was she okay right now? _

…..

He watches her as she gently hits Keith on his arm, the two of them exchanging a look that can only be read as upsetting. 

_ She wasn’t okay. _

“You ready to go man?” Hunk questions, snapping him out of his thoughts. He gives a small nod, eyes quickly darting back over to Keith. Mullet simply nods with a little smile, walking over and taking Lance’s hand in his own.

“You call me the second your chest hurts again, got it?”

Lance laughs, “Will do.”

The blue-eyed boy stares out the window of the car the entire way back, hoping to see something besides desert that would give him a sign that can tell him what to do. 

He starts to give up hope of seeing anything, but there’s a twinkle in the sky that catches his attention.

_ A shooting star. _

He makes a silent wish, and turns towards the Garrison as it appears in front of them.

_ Help me out. _


	8. Space Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiding in your hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I most likely will not be posting the rest of this story (as I am still writing it--) for another week or so in light of certain events. BUT, I am enjoying writing it and I won't leave it alone for too long.
> 
> Thank you to those reading through this mess.  
> Fade-Away is really just a big o' practice fic for me, as will many other fics I write in the future. But I didn't just want to write and not share it out, it's nice to have these fics somewhere so I can see my progression over time.

Months pass, and soon it’s the middle of Lance’s second semester on his last year (technically his last year, he’s not entirely sure what’s planned for him if he’s being honest. But he plans on figuring it out.)   
He didn’t visit Keith too often, it was his last year and he was quite busy. But when he did it was always hugs and video games; (Courtesy of Pidge.)

The search for Shiro was getting.. Odd, to say the least. Keith ended up finding a cave last year he was drawn to, and told Lance he’d take him next time he visited but. He still hasn’t.  
Lance isn’t completely sure why, but when he asks Keith claims he forgot and honestly so did Lance. But the cave seemed important, so why was Keith being secretive about it? Or oblivious?  
He doesn’t know.

Most importantly however, Pidge seems to be determined to find out where a signal from space came from.  
How she got that signal? He has no idea. But voices saying ‘voltron voltron voltron’ over and over again was somewhat creepy. Pidge is still trying to figure it out what it means, thinking that It may explain where Shiro and-- Matt was. As well as her father.

In which, yes, as it turns out-- Pidge was in fact a girl. However the Garrison kicked her out the first time she tried to figure out the truth. So she came back in disguise, and MAN the teachers must’ve been stupid.  
How can you not recognize someone who left and came back with just cut hair and glasses?  
She was basically Matt’s twin, if he was being honest.

And.. Adam, as it turns out. Somehow pushed his way into Lance’s life.  
He didn’t even know what Adam looked like beforehand, only his name from Keith. Shiro’s Ex-Fiance.  
That’s all he knew.  
But then he had one of Adam’s ‘classes’. (Which happened to be mostly Physical education and that meant running-- which also meant, when his chest pains were active he was miserable.)  
On the first day of Adam’s class he happened to be especially missing Keith, he almost got his hand lodged in a wall from when it phased in-- (And apparently yes, for some reason the phasing was tied into being near Keith because when he and Keith were together it _never happened._ )-- But his chest was unbearably flaring up in jolts of pain throughout the day.

Hunk and Pidge caught on first, telling him to be careful and made plans that weekend to drive out to the Shack.  
However, of course. He hadn’t been careful. His idiot self almost toppled over in the middle of running a lap, and he was pulled aside by Adam as soon as he tripped with a hand grasping at his chest.

Adam of course gave him a lecture, ordering him to tell him when he wasn’t feeling great. Lance just looked off to the side guiltily, and Adam sighed.

“Don’t let me get you down.” Adam states, giving the boy a light pat on the back. “I’ve seen your determination and your grades, You might goof around from time to time but you’re a good student and kid.”

Lance smiled at that, making Adam hum. “Thank you, Mr.. Uh..”

“You can just call me Adam, someone has to be the cool teacher.”

“Sure, Adam.” Lance snorts, and Adam looks offended.

“What? Am I not cool?”  
“No, but you’ll get there.”  
“I take offense to that.”  
“Sure, Sure.”  
“Alright twig, go and sit down before I throw you.”

Lance had a feeling Adam would most definitely throw him if he didn’t go sit down that day.

After that first encounter, Lance didn’t feel the need to hide his pain from Adam. If his chest was giving him a hard time he made sure to tell him, and he was just stuck walking around the area or sitting down and ‘observing’ to learn what he could do better over the other students.

Adam was somewhat suspicious of his chest pains as they became more common in the second semester.  
In which, got him in trouble when he collapsed in the hallway Adam happened to be walking in.

He didn’t hear his name be called, but he most definitely heard Hunk and Pidge’s voices.  
Oh yeah.. He was on his way back to his room wasn’t he? What was he doing on the floor?

“Hun..?” He murmurs as he’s being helped up, and he can see a blurry figure nod. “Okay..”

“Lance.”  
His head turns sharply to the side, making the world go dizzy for a moment.  
“Oh.. Hi Adam.” Lance sheepishly waved, making the older man squint.

“Just go lay down.” He orders, making Lance nod without any problems with the order itself. Hunk offers to help him, but Lance just waves him off. He can make it to bed by himself.  
And he does.  
Of course however, he just passes out.

When his eyes open again, the chest pain is gone and he’s wrapped up in someone’s arms. He hums, burying his face into the chest in front of him.  
“Lance..”

“Keith..” He murmurs back sleepily, earning a squeeze in the hug.

“Wanna wake up for me?” Keith questions, rubbing softly at his sides.  
“Sleeping seems better..” Lance whines, and Keith rolls his eyes. 

“Don’t make me order you to stand, cadet.” _Oh god_ that voice wakes him up.  
He immediately looks up in surprise, blurry eyes finding the figure in the room that is Adam.   
Were they in the shack?

“I don’t think he can stand quite yet.” Hunk’s voice breaks through the air, and Lance just yawns in response.  
He can hear Adam talk, but he thinks he starts to space out again. The world looks really blurry and honestly it’s kinda weird. All the colors mixing together..  
Sometimes when he heard one of their voices the colors vibrated, or was that just when Keith spoke?  
He’s not really sure, but the sun outside the window looked really pretty.

“Lance, Lance--” Lance’s head turns over to Keith.  
Keith looked funny when blurry.  
“You okay?”  
Was he okay?  
He nodded, he felt fine.  
Just tired.

“Okay..” Keith’s hand gently coaxes him to lay back down. He makes a noise of appreciation, sleeping as soon as he is allowed to.

“Keith,” Keith looks up from where he was staring at Lance, hand not leaving the boy’s hair.   
“Mhm..?”  
Adam sighs, knowing that look from the boy. The one that’s brooding and angry. “Hunk and Pidge are talking to me but you aren’t.”

“Well maybe there’s a reason for that, Adam.” Keith sassed, earning a scoff from the man.  
“And what reason would that be?”

Keith just looks away, and Adam shakes his head.  
“Keith I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Fuck off Adam.” Keith hisses and Adam is taken back. His own expression turns serious and as he walks over Keith thinks he might’ve screwed up. But he also doesn’t think he cares.

“Keith you’re better than this,” He starts, “What the hell would Shiro think of you--”

“Don’t you fucking dare bring Shiro into this.” Keith interrupts, “Not that you care I guess.”

“What does-- Oh Keith.” Adam suddenly realizes, guilt storming his features. “I may not have.. Married him, Keith, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care any less about him.” He sighs, “I loved him, and if you think he’s alive then I do too. But either way, he wouldn’t want you acting like this and you know it.”

Keith scoffs, “If you loved him you wouldn’t have left him.”

“That’s not fair at all and you know it Keith.” Adam looks away from Keith’s glare, “I wanted him to live a long life, and going up into space for that long I.. I was scared I’d lose him and he went anyways and. Now he is lost. He might be alive, but he’s lost. And gone for longer than what was expected. How do you I think I felt? I was lost and could barely do my work for months, Keith.”

Keith’s features softened, but his defensive stance didn’t change. Adam sighs, knowing that it’d take time before Keith forgave him. His attention turns over to Lance, the boy that nearly gave him a heart attack earlier that day just by collapsing. Now perfectly fine and content to sleep in Keith’s arms.  
A boy who apparently suffers from chest pains and phasing through walls when he’s not around the brooding now-adult.

Yeah, this was all new and certainly hard to believe for Adam. But seeing Lance’s hand go through the car seat on the way here almost made him swerve the car.

He averts his gaze when Keith catches him staring and basically growls at him. He sighs, walking towards the door and joining the two students outside. Hunk and Pidge were kind, though a bit awkward considering they just accidentally roped him into all this.

Adam crouches down by Pidge, her other side occupied by Hunk leaning over and staring at her computer screen on the ground. “Anything new?” He questions, and Pidge frowns.

“Just more mumblings of Voltron.. But it does seem clearer. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing though.” She sighs, shutting the laptop. “There was also something else.. Worrying.”

Adam looks from Hunk to Pidge, who both look somewhat nervous.  
“What is it?”

“..On the Garrison’s radar there’s a foreign object apparently hurtling this way, it’s still far out but it doesn’t look like it’s stopping.” Pidge mumbles, staring up at the sky.

“A meteor or one of our Ships?” Adam questions, and Pidge raises an eyebrow. “Right, foreign object. Let me rephrase that.” He huffs, “If it were to impact earth, would it cause extinction or just a large hole somewhere?”

“If it would mean extinction the garrison’s radars would be flashing red but they’re not, so I think we’re fine but.. The signals that I traced from the talk of ‘Voltron’ aren’t connected to the object, but instead reflecting off of it.” She hums, moving her laptop off to the side.

“So it’s either an enhanced asteroid or a ship with the ability to avoid signals unwanted.” Hunk finishes explaining, and Adam let’s out a laugh. This confuses both of the cadets, but he just shakes his head.

“You two are incredibly smart for your age,” Adam sighs with a soft smile, “You’re going to be doing great things as you are now.”

Hunk and Pidge seem to smile to themselves, bashfully staring at the ground.

Their attention is brought away however when the Shack’s door opens and Keith walks out with Lance piggy-backing. The boy still seems tired, but awake and coherent enough to give them a smile.   
“You doing okay Lance?” Adam questions, standing up from the dusty ground along with Hunk and Pidge.

Lance nods, “Now that I’m with Keith, yeah.” He laughs, but then pouts when Hunk and Pidge shoot him a concerned look. “Don’t start lecturing me, I already got that from Keith.”

“You can’t escape the inevitable, Lance.” Hunk crosses his arms, and Lance gives him the puppy eyes to try and ward off the possible lecture to come. Luckily for Lance, Hunk is weak. The taller boy sighs, walking over and hugging Lance by also hugging Keith. “Well since Keith gave you the lecture I guess it’s fine, but scare me like that again and I will--”

“Okay Okay--” Keith grumbles, making Hunk let go of the hug. “We need to get to the cave.”

“The What?” Adam raises an eyebrow, trying to ignore Pidge jumping up and down in stupid excitement yet confusion.

“The cave! Finally, you kept hiding that and you can’t just hide that from a fellow cryptid hunter.” Pidge rambles, and Keith knows that she is legitimately offended. “But why do we need to go to the cave right now?”

“I-- Uh, I honestly don’t know.” Keith admits, and Lance snorts. The Mullet boy glares back at him and blows in his face, Lance in return sqwuacks and slaps him lightly on the back. “I just have a feeling?” Lance hits him again and Keith pouts.

Adam watches them interact with an eyebrow raised, surprised that Keith would allow Lance to do any of this. He barely allowed Shiro to hug him. He didn’t even shake his hand when they first met.

“You have a feeling?” Pidge’s eyebrow raised and Keith just shrugs. “Okay let’s go.”

“That’s it?” Adam questions as they start walking to his car. Or uh, Keith was walking to his hoverbike-- (In which Adam would lecture him on but Keith definitely would not listen--). 

“I mean, yeah. Lance can phase through shit when he’s not around his boy-” Hunk pokes Pidge hard on the arm, “--BoyKeith,” Hunk chokes and Lance doesn’t hear but makes a confused noise when Keith glares over his shoulder. “So I do believe that Keith is getting a mystical feeling about a cave.”

Adam stares off for a moment at the open desert behind his car and sighs. “Alright, fine. Keith-- no don’t give me that look just because I said your name-- I’ll follow you with Pidge and Hunk. Do we have everything we need?”

“Well all I need is my laptop, so. Why do you ask?” Pidge asks as she opens the door to the car.

“Because if it’s a ‘mystical feeling’ Keith is having, who the hell knows what’s going to happen once we enter the cave.” Adam gets in the front seat, grabbing the keys from his pocket and starting the car.

“True, but any of our possessions should be fine. Our rooms are locked and if we were to go missing--” Hunk gasps as soon as he’s in the car at Pidge’s statement, and Pidge shrugs, “Hey, it’s possible. But seriously, our rooms are locked. And if we don’t come back, only our families are allowed in there. If the garrison goes in without permission, that’s illegal and when I get back I absolutely will take them down.” Pidge smirks at Adam’s questionable look in the front view mirror.

“I’ll help you out if that happens, I have a game system I’m not ready to give up to someone like Iverson.” Adam states, making Pidge and Hunk snort.  
He watches as Keith dotes over Lance, pointing to the car and talking with him. Adam assumes it’s Keith asking if he should ride in the car instead, due to Lance shaking his head in response to whatever Keith just said. Both are too stubborn, even when they’re tired or not feeling great it would seem.

Keith lets out a long sigh, getting up and on the Hoverbike. Lance flashes a successful smile, arms wrapping around the boy’s torso.

And they were ready to go.

Lance certainly enjoyed it, much to Keith’s relief. The boy was laughing the whole time, making it hard not to smile with him. He might’ve ‘forgotten’ about Adam being right behind him and sped up, making dust go flying and a ‘FUCK!’ come from Adam’s car. 

Adam manages to keep up despite the speed, and the cave enters Keith’s sight. Something warm washes over him, and he thinks Lance feels it too. He stops directly in front of it, hopping off and turning to help Lance down. The blue-eyed boy was much better now, but still wobbly on his feet. Or maybe that was just normal for Lance.

Keith stops Lance from going in, pointing towards Adam’s car pulling up. Lance just pouts impatiently, leaning against Keith and sighing. Keith ignores Adam when he starts to say his name while exiting the car, (in order to probably curse him out for the whole ‘dust-in-face’ thing), in favor of poking Lance on the pout.   
The boy makes a surprised noise and attempts to bite the finger, but misses by an inch and almost falls forward.

Keith lets out a laugh when Lance pokes him on the arm, just grabbing his hand and pulling him into the cave when the other three finally catch up.

“Woah,” Lance breathes when seeing the markings on the walls, and Keith stupidly smirks.  
He’s literally just amazed, why was he smiling like this?

“Yeah uh- I’m not really sure what they mean? But I’ve been trying to figure it out..” Keith hums.

“Have you tried touching them?” Lance questions as Pidge walks by, scoffing.  
“Of course he has why wouldn’t h- I-” Pidge is abruptly interrupted by Lance touching the wall and the markings basically blinding everyone as they lit up.  
Pidge looks over to Keith, catching the wide-eyed surprised look on his face and telling her that yes, he did try touching them. And no, they never did this.

“I swear to god Lance is cursed-” Pidge gets shushed by Hunk as he walks by her.  
“Not cursed, just alien.”

“Hunk!” Lance whines, “I’m still right here you know.”  
“Sorry Alien Lance” Hunk apologizes, but it just makes Lance huff offendedly. 

When the ground starts to rumble they all go silent, eyes widening as they shake. It seems fine at first, but then the ground starts to crack and before they could even try to run it crumbles down. Lance tries reaching for Keith, but he’s the first to fall and Keith is quick to follow after him. Hunk is the third to fall, taking down Pidge with him and Adam follow soon behind as he tries to break their fall so they wouldn’t get hurt.

“Lance..?” Keith whispers in the dark, squinting as he tries to see. “Hunk? Pidge?” He squints, “..Adam?”

“Over here,” Adam’s voice calls out, echoing in the cave and making Keith flinch. “Keith literally shut your thoughts up right now and help me move these rocks.” Keith rolls his eyes, but tries to go to where he heard Adam. “Right here,” Adam says, grabbing Keith by the hand and dragging him over.

“Where’s everyone else?” Keith questions, frowning.

“Behind these rocks,” Adam deadpans, and Keith grabs a rock and grumbles as he starts to help move them out of the way.

Keith moves forward as soon as he’s able to, shoving rocks out of the way and stepping towards a dazed-looking Lance. He crouches down from where he sits, cupping his cheeks and gently coaxing him to look at himself. “Hey.. You doing okay?”

Lance blinks, giving a small nod. “Just a lil out of it, Mullet.” He smiles like he didn’t just fall through the floor, and Keith shakes his head. 

“Can you stand?” When Lance gives him another nod he pulls him up, steadying the blue-eyed boy and guiding him towards where Adam was checking on Pidge and Hunk.

“Soooo, was that an earthquake or some kind of Alien Lance mojo-” Hunk questions, making Lance groan.

“Not sure, but it’s definitely not safe down here. Let’s try to find our way out. Is anyone hurt?” Adam glances around at the four of them, earning ‘nos’ and head shakes. “Alright, let’s get going then.”

They walk through the dark cave tunnels, keeping their hands near each other so they wouldn’t get lost. Soon a large opening comes into view, and of course- Lance runs ahead first. Keith fondly rolls his eyes and chases after, but sees Lance stop and gasp. He finds himself skidding to a halt, eyes widening as he looks up at the thing in front of him.

“Holy Shit.” 

“Language-”

“Shut the fuck up Adam-”

“Pidge!”

“Yes Hunk?”

“We’ve been over this. It’s ONE curse word for every shocking moment.”

“Fine.”

Lance steps forward, excitement suddenly bubbling in his chest. “It’s a large fucking Blue LION!” He laughs, face flashing over to Keith who has gone quiet. The Mullet boy in question meets his eyes, and they both laugh as if they just told the best joke. “This is ridiculous.” Lance breathes out, and Keith nodding in agreement.

“Do you think this is why Kerberos went wrong?” Pidge says her thought aloud, making Keith frown.  
 _Could it be?_

“None of this makes sense.” Hunk huffs as he knocks against the barrier around the Lion skeptically and cautiously.

“Well that seems to be the theme of this life.” Adam says, everyone snorting (minus Keith.) _(He actually did snort but he wouldn’t let Adam know that, of course.)_

“If nothing is making sense then a Blue lion being the reason for Shiro going missing might just make the most sense.” Lance mumbles, stepping forward and poking the barrier. As soon as he does however, it disappears under his touch and disappears in glowy particles. “Oh.”

The blue eyed boy feels a hand on his back and he glances over his shoulder at Adam who’s smiling down at him, “Well,” The Blue Lion lowers its head down, mouth opening and ramp extending out from it. Adam goes speechless for a moment, forgetting what he was about to say out of pure astonishment. “Uh-” _Cough._ “Wow, okay uh- Anyways.” He looks back to Lance, who looks just as astonished but most importantly; Amused. “Let’s get on the giant Lion then, because what the fuck else do we have to do with our time I guess?”

“Language” Pidge warns with a cocky smile, making Lance choke with a laugh.

“I hate all of you.” Adam mutters as they laugh, walking up the ramp ahead of them all. 

“We’re just children! You can’t hate us!” Pidge hollers as she follows, dragging Lance up as she passes him.

“Keith is literally 18!” Adam shouts back when Keith catches up with Lance, and followed by Hunk in the back.

“I’m not in this argument,” Keith hums, passing Adam as he pouts.

“See? Keith is logical.”  
“Pidge, I know every way to destroy you.”  
“Touche.” 

Keith watches as Lance sits down in the pilot’s seat, eyebrows raising when it immediately responds to him. The cockpit lights up, glowing a gentle soft blue and starting to hum like a fridge at home. _(Weird comparison, but y’know.)_

“Are you seriously going to fly this thing?” Hunk questions, and Lance shrugs.  
“It wants me to.” Lance states, and everyone else exchanges odd looks.  
“What do you mean it wants you to? Like? A feeling? Like mystical Keith feeling thingy cave-- Thingy?” Hunk fidgets in place, twiddling his thumbs.

“No It’s like-- She’s talking to me?”  
“She?” Pidge questions.

“Yeah uh-- I’m pretty sure it’s a she. She just feels like a she. She’s really warm too.” He pauses, “Uh, but anyways. Yeah she-- wants me to fly her. But not yet.”

“Not yet?” Keith raises an eyebrow, “Why not?”

“I- I can take her out. She’ll let us do that but we’re going to cause a ruckus. She wants to show us? Pidge-- how much uh, noise do you think we’ll make if we just burst out of the ground right now?”

“If you’re implying what I think you’re implying, the Garrison shouldn’t be able to hear. But they will see us on the Radar sooner or later, so whatever we need to do before ‘flying her’ needs to happen quickly.” Pidge states.

“Right.. So whatever is about to happen needs to happen fast.” Lance frowns, nervously bumping his feet against the ground.

Keith tilts his head down at him, and finds that Lance was already looking at him.  
What?  
For guidance?  
…  
“Whatever we do, I’ll be by your side Lance. That will never change.” He whispers to the nervous boy, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing.

“Same with me, but like- Yes I heard that Keith you aren’t quiet- but like, y’know. If we die I’m of course taking you down in the afterlife.” Pidge says and Lance laughs.

“Yeah-- Dude, I might be terrified and honestly if this thing Launches up I might throw up, but I’m with you. Because you’re with me and-- I mean, what else do I do on a Monday night? Study? Nah, that’s the past. The present is Blue lion now.” Hunk says like it’s a fact. 

“Annnd I’m the only Adult here so, technically I’m required to be here--”  
“What happened to Keith being 18?” Pidge smirks.  
“He said he wasn’t included so. He’s a child again. But I’m also here because I want to be here, so why the fuck not? Let’s go probably destroy part of the garrison.” Adam says as he leans against the back of the chair.

“That’s uh,-”  
“Why not all of the Garrison-?” Pidge cuts Lance off, and Lance pouts.  
“Adam is--”  
“Because I still need a job whenever I get back.” Adam cuts him off this time and Lance wants to grab Keith and throw him at th- okay maybe not Keith. A rock would be nice though.

“What were you going to say?”  
Speaking of Keith, Sweet sweet Keith. Keith whom he can always rely on.

“Adam isn’t totally wrong about destroying part of the garrison because Blue thinks that’s where it might end up.” Lance explains, and everyone’s eyebrows raised.

“What is ending up there?”  
Lance shrugs at Keith, “Again, everything is going to move fast and she’s not really.. Giving me too much.”

“Maybe we should get this over with then-”  
“No, not yet.”  
“Lance, when is yet?” Hunk sweats, looking out of the front of the lion out at the cave.

“Now,”  
“Now?”  
“Now!”  
“WHAT?”  
 ** _CRASH!_**

The whole cockpit rattles, and they all stumble. The world goes flying and suddenly instead of a cave around them it’s the open air.  
“Lance please never do that agAAAA-” Hunk yelps as they suddenly crash back into the ground again, Lance letting out an irritated whine.  
Not the best landing.

They all wince as Hunk throws up in the back, and Lance bubbles in guilt. “Sorry-”  
“Lance, you just tried to fly a Blue lion. It’s not your fault.” Keith immediately interrupts, and Lance sighs.  
“Okay.”

“Uh-” Adam blinks, somehow dazed despite having flown many times before. “Right, what’s the next step?”

“That,” Lance says, pointing towards the sky. Everyone leans closer to see where Lance was pointing, even Hunk who managed to settle his stomach to not be so nauseous.   
In the starry night sky, a flame was burning and heading towards the surface.

“Is that the foreign Object, Pidge?” Adam looks down to Pidge, whom’s eyes were wide.

“Yeah-- That’s. That’s definitely it-”  
“Shiro?” Lance gasps, “It’s Shiro!”

“How do you know that?” Keith asks, eager although trying not to get his hopes up just in case.  
“Blue um-” Lance shivers, “Okay she-- We need to go. Pidge you said that--”  
“Lance, how do you know that it’s Shiro?” Keith stands Lance up, making him look him in the eyes.  
“I.. A feeling.”  
“A feeling?”  
“..Yeah..”  
“Okay.”  
“Okay?”  
“Okay.”

_Turns out it was Shiro._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro @ Adam on Twitter: "i lived bitch"


	9. Are you kidding me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith gets Sassy and Lance gains alien points.  
> Pidge gains annoying little sister points.
> 
> Adam and Shiro lose emotional points.
> 
> Hunk just wants to go home, honestly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't even tell you where this fanfiction is going because I had it all planned but then it just crumbled as I went along. So it's really just going with the flow and me trying my best.
> 
> Might be turning into a bit of a shitpost at some parts, but that's fine
> 
> Hope you still enjoy it JKNSRG and I'll try my best to update it and get it finished.

Lance honestly was baffled by the predicament he had landed himself in. I mean, come  _ on.  _ Out of everything life could have thrown at him, this was it. This was where it was going. Not that he wasn’t amused or okay with it-- honestly it COULD be better. But it wasn’t…  _ Bad.  _ It could be worse. He could be dead.

….

He wasn’t, so that was. Probably good.

No, he was just standing outside of Keith’s shack in the middle of the desert while Adam and Shiro argued inside. While Keith somehow snuck inside despite being told to wait outside and was actively involved IN that argument. Just. Standing here, while Pidge and Hunk tried to peep in on the conversation. Standing here while there was a giant blue lion sitting right next to the shack like a dog.

While the Garrison was actively looking for who broke into the facility and snatched Shiro back from their greedy grabby hands.

Yeah so, in short. It wasn’t that bad. Honestly. Could be worse.

Lance’s gaze flickers over to a door slamming shut and an appearance of a pouting purple-eyed mullet boy. Pidge and Hunk both retreat rather quickly as to act like they weren’t listening in, but Keith seems to just see through them and his pout deepens. When Lance locks eyes with him however it seems like the tension from his shoulders immediately lifts, a sigh puffing out of his mouth.

“Are Mom and Dad done fighting yet?” Lance finds himself saying before he’s unable to stop, earning a wheeze from Pidge, a gasp from Hunk, and a reluctant snort from Keith.

“Before I left they mentioned Kerberos so I’m pretty sure they’re not even halfway finished.” Keith grumbles out as he casually strolls over to Lance and lays a hand on the blue-eyed boy's back as if it was natural to do. In which, at this point it was. Lance doesn’t even flinch or back away, not that he would. He doesn’t even think he would if he and Keith weren’t even that close. Sure it might be odd, but honestly Lance has more pressing matters to worry about.

“Are we supposed to be doing something while we wait? Because we kind of have  _ another  _ big thing to talk about.” Hunk  _ dramatically  _ points over to the Mechanical Lion, and raises an eyebrow when Lance just shrugs.

“Well, aside from all the other bat-shit crazy shit, Lance-” Pidge approaches him and pokes the lanky boy on the chest, “Is the dog speaking to you?”

Lance chokes on his own spit, and Keith seems to send a glare to Pidge in which she actively deflects with her own.

“No, the  _ lion  _ hasn’t said much.” Lance averts his eyes from Pidge and over to the sitting blue Lion, she seemed to be sleeping or something. Maybe she was. Maybe bursting out of the ground took a lot of energy out of her.

“Well, I got nothing then.” Pidge sighs, “It’s just a waiting game until something else Alien happens.”

“There’s seriously nothing we can do? I’m not sure if I like the idea of us just being like..” Hunk fidgets, “Sitting ducks.”

“Well we’re not ducks,” Pidge hums, “and we’re not sitting.”

“You know what I meant!” Hunk crosses his arms with an offended huff. “But we aren’t moving, and I think it’d be good to at least get away from the garrison. We’re literally just miles away from it right now.” 

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that.” Keith glances over to the closed door on his shack and debates, before sighing and walking back over to it. He goes to knock gently but then stops, hearing a ‘ _ You said you loved me-’  _ in the beginning of a sentence surely leading to either Adam or Shiro’s doom. 

_ Okay, that seems important. But they can discuss that elsewhere, this is ridiculous.  _ Keith thinks, suddenly pettily  _ banging  _ on the door with several thumps. “If you two are done with your Dance Mom gossip-”  _ Pride swells in his chest at Lance’s laugh-  _ “I’m pretty sure we have the FBI on our asses so can we speed it up please?”

When it goes quiet in the shack, Keith calls it a success and steps back over to Lance. “Do you think you can talk to the Lion? Because I don’t think we can all fit on my hover bike.” He questions in an obliviously fond tone, watching Lance bite his lip in doubt.

“I wasn’t planning on leaving her behind in the first place, maybe I should’ve tried doing that earlier..” Lance puffs out his cheeks as he blows a raspberry. “Though if she doesn’t talk or respond to me that might be an issue.”

“And how exactly were you planning on taking her with us and why?” Pidge makes a judgemental expression though she wasn’t  _ actually  _ judging him.

_ Maybe a little bit. _

_ More like analyzing, but either way. _

“Well I wasn’t- more like trying to hide inside of her and hoping for the best.” Lance ignores Keith’s  _ ‘wow’  _ comment, “And do you ever just see a cat on the side of the street and think ‘ _ I can’t leave that behind’ _ ? Yeah well, Blue is the cat. And she is now mine. Or ours-- but most importantly, mine. I’m already attached.”

“Okay, I can’t really judge. I was going to, but I really can’t.” Pidge ignores Hunk’s  _ ‘wow’  _ comment as well, “So, let me ask you this.”

“I’m listening” Lance crosses his arms, preparing for impact.

“Was Keith one of those cats you saw on the street and thought ‘ _ that’s mine now’ _ ?”

Lance sputters, having been prepared for  _ something  _ but clearly not this. He’s damaged. Wounded. Dead. Gone. “Bye.” Is all he says before charging over to the Blue Lion, leaving a just as broken Keith behind to stare wide-eyed at a victorious Pidge.

“You never stop, do you?” Hunk comments, making Pidge rub her gremlin hands together.

“If I’m not paid to stop then no, I don’t.” She responds in amusement, smile growing wider as Keith can’t get any word in due to the shack’s door opening and two stressed out men walking out.

Keith and Shiro suddenly make eye contact, Pidge and Hunk seeing it happen as they wait in anticipation. 

“Are you kidding me?” Keith bursts as soon as he spots a certain  _ bruise  _ on his brother’s  _ neck.  _ “You’ve _got to be shitting me._ ”

“Language” Is all Adam says,  _ oh smug now aren’t we?  _ Keith thinks as his eye twitches. 

“You two were just arguing! You haven’t seen each other in like, a year!” Mullet waves his hands around, not quite noticing Pidge’s phone very clearly videotaping the predicament. 

“We uh, talked it out?” Shiro offers, and Adam shakes his head.

“Definitely not.” He deadpans.

“Then what--?!” Keith groans and lets his arms fall at his sides in defeat. “I’m going to see if Lance needs help, you two aren’t allowed to criticize me for being emotionally incompetent any more. Bye.” He waves his hand and walks off towards the mechanical Lion, leaving Adam and Shiro to talk with Pidge and Hunk if they are so pleased.

Keith didn’t even realize the Blue Lion’s head was on the ground until he was over there, but he chooses to ignore it as he crawls inside of her and makes his way to Lance. The boy himself was sitting on the pilot’s seat, eyes closed in a sort of bliss that Keith can’t pinpoint.

“So I’m guessing it worked?” Keith questions, startling Lance out of his state. The boy huffs, pouting when Keith sticks his tongue out at him.

“Yeah, she’s uh-- really nice.” Lance shrugs shyly, “It’s weird but-- she purrs too? Anyways uh-”   
  
“You don’t happen to have a trash can that I can shove myself in, do you?” Keith interrupts, his eyes widening as Lance blinks in confusion.  _ He really just let that slip out of his mouth. _ “I- I mean, what were you going to say?”

“Keith, don’t get me wrong- I love your boldness lately but  _ are you okay? _ ” Lance questions as Keith rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Yeah I’m-- Okay. I think.” Keith regrets his word choice as Lance’s eyes narrow.

“You  _ think? _ ” 

“Okay-- Okay. I’m just. Confused.” Keith sits down on the floor next to the pilot’s seat, leaning against it and looking up to Lance.

“Well, I’m pretty sure we’re  _ all  _ confused.. That’s probably why we’re trying to.. Y’know,  _ hide  _ that we’re confused? Because I know that I’m VERY confused but I’m also.. Scared and I don’t know what to do.” Lance admits, “Blue has been trying to help me out but, she’s honestly just as confusing.” He shoots a soft look over to Keith when the boy places a hand on his knee, “But I don’t know how you’re feeling. Mixed in with the confusion over finding Shiro like  _ this  _ I can only guess it’s.. Scary and, maybe even annoying? Y’know? To find out he’s been in space the whole time and the garrison never did  _ anything  _ about it.” 

Keith considers this, head lowering down to look at the floor.

“I guess so.”

Lance sighs, “Just think about it and.. Talk to me when you’re ready. It’s okay to not be okay-- I told you that first but you also told me that. We just.. Keep on reminding ourselves but--  _ Seriously.  _ I’m here for you.”

“I know,” Keith smiles this time, squeezing Lance’s knee gently. “I’ll come to you.”

“Good.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE, not a chapter.

Hey! So It seems that I severely lost track of time.. I apologize for that. But my motivation to write has been absolute '0%' and Im unsure if I will be picking up this story again any time soon. I have the intention to finish it at some point, however with everything going on in the world and with how busy as well as unmotivated to write I have been, that may be a while.

I have other stories in mind I wish to write as well, hopefully at some point I can get energized to start again!

But for now, I hope everyone is doing okay. Stay safe, and keep going! You've got this. <3


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